They are not bad at all

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 14 August 1882

Painting is such a joy to me. Last Saturday night I attacked a thing I had been dreaming of for a long time. It is a view of the flat green meadows, with haycocks. . . .

Then I have painted a huge mass of dune ground - thickly painted and sticky.

. . . I am sure no one could tell that they are my first painted studies.

To tell you the truth, it surprises me a little. I had expected the first things to be a failure, though I supposed they would improve later on; but though I say so myself, they are not bad at all, and I repeat, it surprises me a little.

I think the reason is that before I began to paint, I had been drawing so much and had studied perspective in order to build up the composition of the thing I saw.

Letter 225
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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