What I want to express according to my own character

By the way, you must not take it amiss, Theo, or think I'm finding fault with you, but you wrote me something which you thought would perhaps please me, but it didn't please me at all. You said that small watercolor was the best of mine that you had seen - well, it isn't, because those studies of mine which you have are much better, and last summer's pen drawings are better too. That little drawing is of no importance whatever, I only sent it to show you that it is not impossible that I may work in watercolor sometime. But there is much more serious study and more character in those other things, though they may look rather yellow-soapy. And if I had anything against Mr. Tersteeg (but I have nothing against him), it would be the same thing, which is that he encourages me not in the difficult study from the model, but rather in a style of work which really is only half fit to render what I want to express, according to my own character and my own temperament.

To Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 25 February 1882, Letter 177
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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