To devote one's life to the poetry in them

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 19 August 1882

I fully agree that, with all their good and bad qualities, Father and Mother are the kind of people who are becoming rare in the present time - more and more rare - and perhaps the new type is not at all better - and so one must appreciate them that much more.

Personally, I do indeed appreciate them. I am only afraid that the feeling about which you reassured them for the time being would come back, especially if they saw me again. They will never be able to understand what painting is. They cannot understand that the figure of a laborer—some furrows in a ploughed field - a bit of sand, sea and sky—are serious subjects, so difficult, but at the same time so beautiful, that it is indeed worth while to devote one's life to expressing the poetry hidden in them.

Letter 226
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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