Using a storm to make headway

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 12 or 13 May 1882

In life it is the same as in drawing - one must sometimes act quickly and decisively, attack a thing with energy, trace the outlines as quickly as lightning.

This is not time for hesitation or doubt; the hand must not tremble, nor must the eye wander, but remain fixed on what is before one. And one must be so absorbed in it that in a short time something has been brought onto the paper or the canvas which was not there before, in such a way that later one hardly knows how it was hammered off. The period of discussing and thinking must precede the decisive action. There is little room for reflection or argument in the action itself.

To act quickly is the function of a man, and one has to go through much before one is able to do it. The pilot sometimes succeeds in using a storm to make headway, instead of being wrecked by it.

Letter 197
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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