Andries “Dries” Bonger

Quick Facts

Andries “Dries” Bonger is the older brother of Johanna Bonger and a Paris friend-turned-gatekeeper to Theo van Gogh. He ushers Johanna into modern Paris and the van Gogh circle, then later tries to pull her back out.

• First appearance: Greeting Johanna in Paris and introducing her to the city’s art world
• Key relationships: Johanna (sister and confidant), Theo (friend and eventual brother-in-law), Annie (estranged wife); his judgments are shadowed by Vincent van Gogh
• Thematic role: Tests the limits of Family, Love, and Sacrifice and opposes Johanna’s devotion to Legacy, Art, and Preservation

Who They Are

Dries is the worldly older brother who looks like a liberator when he opens Paris to Johanna—but he becomes the spokesperson for convention when that freedom leads her toward risk, scandal, and purpose. The book offers no physical description; his presence is built from choices: the introductions he makes, the warnings he gives, and the lines he’s willing to cross to keep his sister “safe.” He is a paradox—bohemian address, bourgeois instincts—whose fear of chaos, fueled by his own unhappy marriage, hardens into a creed of prudence.

Personality & Traits

At heart, Dries values order over inspiration. He frames caution as care, and practicality as moral duty. What begins as brotherly protection curdles into control once Johanna’s life tangles with the van Goghs’ instability and genius.

• Protective to a fault: Forbids Johanna’s engagement after Vincent’s breakdown, insisting he won’t “allow” her to join a “madman’s” family—protection recast as veto power.
• Conventional and pragmatic: Treats Vincent’s canvases as liabilities and eventually chooses a secure insurance job in Amsterdam over Parisian bohemia, revealing the gravity of his respectability politics.
• Cynical about marriage: His miserable union with Annie turns him into a pessimist about romantic passion; he counsels Johanna to prioritize durable happiness over love’s volatility.
• Judgmental and risk-averse: Sees mental illness as hereditary taint and social danger; his horror at Vincent’s condition drives a series of hard-line interventions.
• Loyal—until loyalty threatens stability: He brings Johanna and Theo together, then later unravels that bond by having Theo committed when crisis arrives.

Character Journey

Dries begins as a bridge: the urbane brother who ushers Johanna into Paris and introduces her to Theo, believing he’s expanding her world. When Vincent’s illness explodes into public scandal, that bridge becomes a checkpoint. Dries reinterprets his role—no longer facilitator of Johanna’s independence but guardian against social ruin. After Vincent’s death, Theo’s collapse confirms Dries’s worst fears; he responds not with compassion but with containment, committing Theo in an attempt to restore order. Following Theo’s death, he urges Johanna to erase the burden of Vincent’s art entirely, advising her to burn it for firewood. His arc is less transformation than revelation: the tasteful cosmopolitan whose deepest allegiance is to conventional safety, making him the story’s loving antagonist to Johanna’s calling.

Key Relationships

• Johanna Bonger: Dries is both gateway and gatekeeper—he opens the path to Johanna’s future and then tries to shut it. He loves her intensely but trusts social norms more than her judgment, so his “care” translates into pressure to choose safety over purpose.
• Theo van Gogh: Friends in Paris, they begin as allies in culture and conversation. Once Theo marries Johanna and then deteriorates, Dries’s friendship collapses under fear and respectability; having Theo committed breaks their bond and recasts Dries as betrayer rather than protector.
• Annie: Their unhappy marriage is the quiet engine of Dries’s worldview. It feeds his suspicion of passionate unions and explains his insistence that Johanna choose stability, even if it means a loveless, “sensible” match.

Defining Moments

Dries’s crucial scenes chart the shift from cultured guide to conservative enforcer—each decision narrowing Johanna’s options in the name of prudence.

• Opposing the engagement: After Vincent’s breakdown in Arles, Dries forbids Johanna to marry Theo, invoking class (“mésalliance”) and the specter of hereditary madness.
  • Why it matters: It reveals his hierarchy of values—reputation before relationship—and reframes brotherly care as social control.
• Having Theo committed: Following Vincent’s death, Theo’s rapid mental and physical decline terrifies Dries; he unilaterally institutionalizes him.
  • Why it matters: Dries crosses an ethical line, prioritizing decisiveness and order over compassion and consent, fracturing trust with Johanna.
• “Burn the paintings”: Visiting Johanna after Theo’s death, Dries advises her to destroy the canvases for firewood.
  • Why it matters: The moment crystallizes his inability to perceive artistic or emotional value; it also sharpens Johanna’s resolve to preserve what he would erase.
• Choosing the insurance job in Amsterdam: Dries leaves Paris for secure employment, abandoning the artistic milieu he once shared.
  • Why it matters: A quiet but definitive statement of identity—security over risk, convention over creativity.

Essential Quotes

“It’s an unacceptable mésalliance. I will not allow my sister to marry into the family of a madman.”

This line fuses class anxiety with the stigma of mental illness. Dries’s “will not allow” exposes the controlling edge of his protection, showing how fear of scandal can masquerade as familial duty.

“I know Theo is in love with you, but do you truly love him, Jo? Do you believe that you can make each other happy? It’s not as easy as we naively think. I want you to be joyful in your marriage.”

Here, Dries wraps skepticism in tenderness. He speaks from the pain of his own marriage, but his “realism” ultimately undermines Johanna’s agency, suggesting joy is best secured by lowering her sights.

“You have a mountain of canvases, Jo. Do be reasonable.”

Reasonableness is Dries’s moral vocabulary. He reduces the paintings to clutter and cost, revealing his habit of translating meaning into material burden—and why Johanna must resist him to honor legacy.

“Burn them.”

This stark imperative is the purest expression of Dries’s creed: erase risk to restore order. The brutality of the advice clarifies the stakes of Johanna’s mission and fixes Dries as her loving, misguided foil.