Vincent in Arles
(1888)

Ah, my dear brother, sometimes I know so clearly what I want. In life and in painting too, I can easily do without the dear Lord, but I can’t, suffering as I do, do without something greater than myself, which is my life, the power to create.
And if frustrated in this power physically, we try to create thoughts instead of children; in that way, we’re part of humanity all the same. And in a painting I’d like to say something consoling, like a piece of music. I’d like to paint men or women with that je ne sais quoi of the eternal, of which the halo used to be the symbol, and which we try to achieve through the radiance itself, through the vibrancy of our colorations.

From  letter to his brother Theo. Date: Arles, Monday, 3 September 1888

Ploughed Field. The Furrows
September, 1888 


Oil on canvas
72.5 x 92.5 cm. 


Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum
https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0040V1962