Now you know my innermost thoughts

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, c. 14-18 March 1882

You must have found it odd to see a reference in my last letter to something I have never mentioned before, and a reference made, moreover, in a rather peremptory tone, something like: Theo, throw the whole lot overboard and become a painter, there is a famous landscape painter inside you.

These words might well have escaped me at the moment when my passions were aroused. But that doesn't alter the fact that it happens like that with other things that I allow to slip out in spite of myself sometimes, once I've got in a passion or have been aroused in some way or other. In other words, what I say at such times is what I've been bottling up for a long time and then blurt out, sometimes quite bluntly. But although in a calmer mood I would put it better, or keep it to myself, the fact is that, especially in a calm mood, I am most decidedly of that particular opinion.

Now it is out, and out it must stay, I have said it at last in spite of myself - inadvertently - in short, bluntly - but now you know my innermost thoughts.

Letter 182
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what