Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (c. 19 July 1888) ... your letter, which gave me great pleasure,
arriving just exactly at the moment when I was still dazed with
the sun and the strain of wrestling with a rather big
canvas.
I have a new drawing of a garden full of flowers , and two painted studies
as well.
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard (c. 23 July 1888) ... oleander flower in the sweet little hand . It
has exhausted me so much that I am hardly in a fit state to
write. Goodbye for now, and once more many thanks,
Ever yours, Vincent
...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard (c. 18 August 1888) ... other things.
Thanks for your letter. This time I am writing in a great
hurry and greatly exhausted.
I am very pleased you have joined Gauguin.
Ah! I have another figure all the same which is an absolute
continuation of certain studies of heads I did in Holland. I
showed them to you one day along with a picture from that
period, “The Potato Eaters”; I wish I could show
you this one. It is still a study, in which colour plays a part
such as the black and white of a drawing could not possibly
reproduce.
I wanted to send you a very large and very careful drawing.
Very well! It turned out quite different, though it is correct.
For this time again the colour suggests a blazing air of
harvest time right in the South, in the middle of the dog days,
and without that it's another picture.
I dare believe that Gauguin and you would understand it; but
how ugly people will think it! You know what a peasant
is, how strongly he reminds one of a wild...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (13 October 1888) ... man would work with greater regularity.
I am really falling asleep and I can't see any more, my eyes
are so tired.
Good-by for the present, because I still have a lot to say,
and I must make you some better sketches. I shall probably make
them tomorrow.
Thank you again very much for your money order. A good
handshake.
Ever yours, Vincent
That's 5 canvases I have in progress this week, that brings
the number of these size 30 canvases for the decoration to 15, I think.
2 canvases of sunflowers
3 “ the poet's garden
2 “ the other garden
1 “ the night café
1 “ the Trinquetaille bridge
1 “ the railway bridge
1 “ the house
1 “ Tarascon diligence
1 “ the starry night
1 “ the furrows
1 “ the vineyard
...
Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh (14 October 1888) ... what I
have done in figure painting.
I have been and still am nearly half-dead from the past
week's work. I cannot do any more yet, and besides, there is a
very violent mistral that raises clouds of dust which whiten
the trees on the plain from top to bottom. So I am forced to be
quiet. I have just slept sixteen hours at a stretch, and it has
restored me considerably.
And tomorrow I shall have recovered from this queer
turn.
But I have done a good week's work, truly, with five
canvases. If that somewhat takes it out of one, well, it's
natural. If I had worked more quietly, you can easily see that
the mistral would have caught me again. If it is fine here you
must take advantage of it, otherwise you would never do
anything.
Say, what is Seurat doing? If you see him, tell him from me
that I am working on a scheme of decoration which has now got
to 15 square size 30 canvases, and which will take at least 15
others to make a whole, and that in this work on a larger
...
