Is It Really Too Late?

When you think it's too late, is it really too late?

Painting, or a musical instrument. A time you stopped in front of the sign-up button, thinking 'At my age, why bother?', and set it aside. You've had one, haven't you?

In a little while, I will show you a short piece of writing by an old man of 75, and the time a 30-year-old Van Gogh reckoned he had left.

Van Gogh, the painter who died at 37, wrote this to his brother:

Hokusai, the painter who gave his own age as 75, wrote this at the end of a picture book:

A painter who burned hot for about ten years, and a painter who kept going doggedly for 70 years. Which of them was late?

September 1888, Arles. Van Gogh reads a letter from his brother Theo. Looking at Hokusai's waves, Theo had written this:

Record; letter 676 (8 September 1888) — that it refers to the Great Wave is an inference by the scholars of the letters edition

'These waves are claws. The ship is caught in them.'

Record; paraphrase; letter 676 — Theo's words, copied out by Van Gogh

Look here. The tips of the wave split like fingers, and those tips split again, like hooks. Inside a small wave, another small wave.

Observation; interpretation — Cartwright & Nakamura 2009

A quiz. In this picture, find a mountain.

That small peak far in the distance is Mount Fuji. It is the main subject of this series, but here it is hiding under the wave. There are three boats.

Record; the picture; Art Institute of Chicago; Korenberg 2020

The man who drew this picture is today's second main figure.

Record; the woodblocks were cut by a block carver

Katsushika Hokusai. Born in 1760 in Edo, today's Tokyo, he lived as a painter for 70 years.

Record; Sumida Hokusai Museum — 1779–1849

The Hokusai Manga he published is not manga in today's sense, but a drawing textbook that gathers people, animals and waves, drawn as the fancy took him.

Record; the Met, JIB82; Sumida City — first volume 1814

In 1834, he placed a short piece of writing at the end of a picture book. This is the piece I promised.

Record; One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, first volume, postscript — printed with the book

Look here. 'Nothing I drew before 70 is worth noticing. At 73 I came at last to grasp a little of the bones of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of how grasses and trees grow.'

Record; One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, first volume, postscript, '七十年前…' '七十三才…'

'So at 80 I shall advance still further, at 90 I shall fully grasp their deep meaning, and at 100 shall I reach the marvellous? At 110, a single dot, a single stroke, will seem to live.'

Note · Marvellous = so excellent it is hard to believe it is human skill

Record; postscript, '八十才'; '一百歳にして正に神妙ならん歟'; '生るがごとく'

The signature: 'the old man mad about painting'.

Record; '画狂老人卍'

A man who, at 75, wrote that from now on he would go further. For him, it seems, there was no such word as 'late'.

Interpretation

The Great Wave, which he drew at around 70: look here. This deep blue.

Record; c. 1830–32

In his prints from around 70, Prussian blue, a blue pigment made in Europe that had just become cheap and widespread, was used mixed with indigo. In a Japanese print, a European blue.

Note · Prussian blue = a blue pigment made in Berlin around 1706 (in Japan, 'bero-ai')

Record; Berlin 1706; imported to Japan 1747; cheaper and widespread from c. 1829; Heritage Science 2020

Quiz two. It is the same Great Wave, so why is the sky a different color in these two prints?

Prints are made one sheet at a time, so their colors differ with when they were printed and how much they have faded.

Record; 111 impressions examined; Korenberg 2020

The same picture, a different sky. This print, too, was not finished in a single go.

Vincent van Gogh. Born in 1853 in the Netherlands, he decided at 27 to become a painter.

Record; Van Gogh Museum

At 30, he wrote to his brother that he estimated the time his body would hold out at, say, six to ten years. He painted for nearly seven years after that, and then he died.

Record; paraphrase; letter 371 (August 1883), 'zonder voorbarigheid … bijvoorbeeld'

In Paris he collected Japanese prints, and copied pictures by Hiroshige, a print artist of Edo, keeping their composition just as it was.

Record; Van Gogh Museum; Hiroshige born 1797

Quiz three. On the left is Hiroshige's print; on the right, the painting Van Gogh copied from it. What changed?

Look here. The tree trunks, which were black and gray, have turned red and blue. And on both sides, orange bands and Japanese characters.

Record; Van Gogh Museum s0115V1962

These characters were taken from other prints. They are words like the names of a shop and a person, and have nothing to do with the plum-blossom picture.

Record; Van Gogh Museum (added as decoration); The Art Newspaper 2025

In my view, nothing is mine from the start. It is from the moment I choose what to learn and what to mix that something of my own comes into being.

My view

How he described himself to his younger sister after moving down to Arles: in white clothes and a yellow straw hat, loaded down with gear like a prickly porcupine, always covered in dust.

Note · Porcupine = an animal covered in long quills (bigger than a hedgehog)

Record; paraphrase; letter 626 (June 1888, to Willemien)

From that winter on, he was shaken again and again, and the next spring he entered a sanatorium of his own accord.

Note · Sanatorium = a place to stay while a sick body and mind are cared for

Record; Van Gogh Museum; letter 760 (21 April 1889), note 4 — admitted 8 May 1889; no diagnosis is asserted

Based on the dawn view he saw from that room's window, this painting was made in the daytime, in the studio: The Starry Night.

Record; MoMA 472.1941; letters 776 and 777

But the village below could not be seen from the window. He mixed what he saw with what he imagined.

Record; MoMA

Quiz four. How many paintings did Van Gogh sell while he was alive? Just one, or several?

It is often said just one, but the Van Gogh Museum holds that it was more than one or two. In his last year, a long critical article on him alone also appeared. That summer, he died.

Record; Van Gogh Museum FAQ; Aurier, January 1890

A man who died just as recognition was beginning. Did he paint in order to be recognized?

Two people who never met. Nearly four years after Hokusai died, Van Gogh was born. This is an imagined conversation, built from the writings they left.

Record; dates of birth and death

First question. Have you ever thought it was too late?

One who started late, and one who started early and still says he has a long way to go.

Vote. Which side are you on? Short and fiery: Van Gogh. Long and dogged: Hokusai.

We are about halfway to the answer. Neither of them stopped because it was late.

Second. What do you study?

Third. Then where is the end?

Which of them was late? If I add one thought of my own here: I believe there is lateness in goals meant to be shown to others, but on the path of looking into myself, there is no lateness.

My view

Yet two people who never once met wrote similar lists. From grasses and trees to beasts.

This text of Hokusai's was translated and printed in a French book in 1883, and the scholars of the letters edition think Van Gogh may have seen that book.

Note · Scholars of the letters edition = the scholars who compiled and annotated the complete letters of Van Gogh (the Van Gogh Museum edition)

Record; Gonse, L'Art japonais (1883); interpretation; letter 620, notes

Short and long, fiery and cold: that was the outward appearance.

I think both of them held on to the self here and now, and let go of what was past of their own free will. Hokusai said his pictures before 70 were not worth noticing, and Van Gogh did not stay with what he knew how to do.

My view · Interpretation; record: postscript; letter 528

And science? A 2014 study had adults aged 60 to 90 learn digital photography, something new to them, for three months. That group's memory improved, while the group that spent the same time just socializing showed no difference.

Record; Park et al. 2014, Psychological Science; over 200 people, 15+ hours a week

It was not the time but the hard learning of something new that made the difference.

Interpretation

Hokusai said that only at 73 did he come to understand a little. By that reckoning, about how old are you now? What have you set aside? Tell us in the comments.

From here on, this is my own view. Not a right answer, but a thought I want to share.

My view

I look at this text again. A man who, at 75, wrote that from now on he would go further. Since there is no end, there is neither late nor early. That 'from now on', too, is in the end a now that we meet anew every day.

My view

Around the time one period of his work gave way to the next, he often let go of his old name and started anew. To polish without end, and when the time comes, to let go without attachment.

My view

Deciding when that time comes is free will, and life goes all the way to taking responsibility for it.

Note · Free will = the power to decide for myself, not others deciding for me

My view

Letting go, too, need not be called failure. If I decide by my own free will, take responsibility, and walk a path that is my own rather than others' judgment, only I know what it is worth.

My view

I look at these two pictures again. The world grows wider when different pieces meet and mix. Art is one universe meeting another universe and exploding. And making a new universe.

My view

Within those combinations, coming to know my meaning little by little, building my will little by little, and making my own universe richer. I think that is how to love myself.

My view

Van Gogh died at 37, but he left more than 800 letters and his paintings, and more than 130 years later they have reached us now. Not the DNA of the body, but the DNA of the mind. Just as King Sejong the Great left his in written characters.

Note · DNA = the blueprint that passes the body's makeup on to the next generation · DNA of the mind = thoughts that remain and are passed on through writing, pictures and voice

My view · Record; 820 letters written by Van Gogh

Reaching is up to time. My part is to write one reflection on life. Not something stored up, but one written in this very moment.

My view

I am a part of the universe, and also, in myself, one small universe.

My view

When you think it's too late, is it really too late? My answer is this. On the path of looking into myself, no one is late. All there is, is the now we write again today.

My view

Hokusai at 75, and Van Gogh after starting late, did not stop. One study in science, too, judged that even late in life, learning something hard and new, like digital photography, can improve memory.

Earning a living still has to be done. But there is no need to live your whole life only for earning a living. As far as you can, the effort to find that proportion is itself the meaning. That effort is the beating of wings.

My view

This is how I see it. The road has no end, and the walker's time is finite. So there is no lateness, but the beating of wings is now.

My view

Try just one thing today. The thing you set aside: start it with just one line, one stroke.

My view

The words 'too late', too, are in the end measured by someone else's clock. So let me ask one last question. Do we live only if we are recognized, or is it because we go on living that both recognition and a record can remain?