Vincent Van Gogh 60 - Judged By Mijnheer Tersteeg Poem by Geeta Radhakrishna Menon

While Vincent stood in a daze admiring the ambience
Of the Goupil gallery, lined with fabulous paintings,
Mijnheer Tersteeg, who was walking down the stairs
Stopped, when he noticed Vincent, his former clerk,
Standing awkwardly, holding a clumsy bundle under his arm.
Tersteeg did not the miss the short-cropped hair,
Or Vincent's red stubbles, spread all over his face,
Nor his working man's coat and his peasant's boots.
It struck Tersteeg that Vincent was a misfit
To this elegant environment, where class dominated.

The two men greeted each other casually.
Tersteeg, getting to the point quickly, asked him
To show his paintings, as he took him to his office.
Vincent handed him a series of paintings of Borinage.
Then, his drawings of peasants and labourers of Etten,
And a third set of copies that he made just a few days
Before he decided to make this trip to The Hague.
Tersteeg looked at the copies, one after the other,
Except for a brief sound like …..Hmmm…..,
Tersteeg maintained a stony silence that alarmed Vincent.

Vincent waited for the judgement from Mijnheer Tersteeg.
But the grave, long silence meant his work was bad.
He felt sick. Vincent broke the silence by asking:
" Don't you see any improvement at all Mijnheer Tersteeg?
Don't you think that my Brabant sketches better than
The ones from the Borinage? "
"Well, he replied. They are better. But they are not good.
There is something fundamentally wrong.
Just what it is I can't say offhand.
I think you had better keep to your copying for a time."

Tersteeg continued to give his judgement.
"You are not ready to do original work yet.
You must get a better grasp of elementals
Before you turn to life." Vincent was stunned.
However, Vincent humbly replied: " I would like
To come to The Hague to study. Do you think
It is a good idea? " Tersteeg replied:
"The Hague is a nice place. We have good galleries and
A number of young painters. But whether it is better
Than Antwerp, Paris or Brussels, I am sure I don't know."

A Biographical Poem