letters from vincent XIV

auvers-sur-oise/july 1890
to brother theo and johanna


I should like him to have a soul less unquiet than mine, which is foundering . . .

*

They are vast fields of wheat under troubled skies, and I did not need to go out of my way to express sadness and extreme loneliness.

*

to his mother and wilhelmina

I myself am quite absorbed in the immense plain with wheatfields against the hills, boundless as a sea, delicate yellow, delicate soft green, the delicate violet of a dug-up and weeded piece of soil, chequered at regular intervals with the green of flowering potato plants, everything under a sky of delicate blue, white, pink, violet tones.

I am in a mood of almost too much calmness, in the mood to paint this . . .

*

to brother theo

Daubigny's garden, foreground of grass in green and pink, To the left a green and lilac bush and the stem of a plant with whitish leaves. In the middle a border of roses, to the right a wicket, a wall, and above the wall a hazel tree with violet foliage. Then a lilac hedge, a row of rounded yellow lime trees, the house itself in the background, pink, with a roof of bluish tiles. A bench and three chairs, a figure in black with a yellow hat and in the foreground a black cat. Sky pale green.