"We don't need that any more"

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 24 November 1882

It is easier to say, as Mesdag did of a certain picture by Heyerdahl, painted with the same sentiment as that of Murillo or Rembrandt, which he didn't want to buy from you, "Oh, that's the old style - we don't need that any more," than it is to replace that old style by something as good, let alone something superior.

And as many people these days argue the same way as Mesdag, without thinking much about it, it can do no harm if others reflect whether we are in this world to tear down instead of build up. The expression "We don't need that any more" - how readily it is used, and what a stupid and ugly phrase it is. In one of his fairy tales Andersen puts it, I think, not in a human being's mouth, but in an old pig's.

Letter 247
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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