The thing one makes will be original

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 22 June 1883

I also have a good time, apart from many financial worries - many other worries too - but with my work I am in luck: I have been working with enormous pleasure lately, and with a firm feeling of “being on the open road,” as Rappard says of himself in the letter which I sent you. Yes, boy, one perseveres and works on without minding the rest, if one tries honestly and freely to fathom nature, and does not lose hold of what one has in mind whatever people may say, then one feels calm and steady and faces the future quietly. Yes, one may make mistakes, one may perhaps exaggerate here or there, but the thing one makes will be original. You have read in Rappard's letter the words: “I used to make things now in this, then in that style, without sufficient personality: but these last drawings have at least a character of their own, and I feel that I have found my way.” I feel almost the same thing now.

Letter 295
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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