A kind of internal struggle
Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from The Hague, 11 December 1882
You ask about my health - last summer's trouble is really quite gone, but I feel rather depressed at present, whereas at other moments, when my work progresses well, I am quite cheerful, and feel kind of like a soldier who isn't at home in the guardhouse, and argues thus to himself, "Why must I be in prison here, when I should be much better off among the rank and file where I belong?"
I mean, I feel depressed because I have a strength in me which circumstances prevent from developing as well as it could; the result is that I often feel miserable. A kind of internal struggle about what I must do - which is not as easy to solve as might seem at first.
Letter 252
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
You ask about my health - last summer's trouble is really quite gone, but I feel rather depressed at present, whereas at other moments, when my work progresses well, I am quite cheerful, and feel kind of like a soldier who isn't at home in the guardhouse, and argues thus to himself, "Why must I be in prison here, when I should be much better off among the rank and file where I belong?"
I mean, I feel depressed because I have a strength in me which circumstances prevent from developing as well as it could; the result is that I often feel miserable. A kind of internal struggle about what I must do - which is not as easy to solve as might seem at first.
Letter 252
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
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