One will find out things for oneself

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 25 September 1882

Remember that I want to hear your criticisms exactly as you think. I often feel the longing and need to ask someone's advice on different questions, but I do not give in to it after what happened with Mauve, and I do not talk to painters about my work. Somebody may be remarkably clever, but what use is it to me when he tells me to do things differently from the way he does it himself? I would rather Mauve had told me something about the use of body color instead of saying, “Under no circumstances must you use body color,” whereas he himself and all the others almost always use it, and with the best results. Well, in many cases, one will eventually be able to find out things for oneself, and that is what I try to do. Yes, if I could do exactly what I wanted, I should undertake painting on an even larger scale, and especially with more models.

Letter 234
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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