Slow but sure progress

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 20-21 August 1883

We'll make slow but sure progress, and I do not know a better way. . . .

Well, I have made up my mind in no case to become impatient, even if people purposely put obstacles in my way. . . .

I think there is a difference between now and the past. In the years gone by there used to be more passion both in making and in judging work. They deliberately chose this or that direction, they energetically took the part of one or the other. There was more animation. I think now there is a spirit of capriciousness and satiety; people are generally more lukewarm. For my part, I already wrote you some time ago that it seemed to me that there had been a sharp decline since Millet, as if the top had already been reached and decadence had set in. This has influenced everybody and everything.

Letter 315
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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