Always doing what I can't do yet

Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, from Nuenen, second half of August 1885

The work in question, the painting of peasants, is such a hard job that the utterly weak won't even attempt it.

And at least I have attempted it, and I have laid certain foundations, which is not exactly the easiest part of the job! And in drawing as well as in painting I can sometimes keep hold of certain solid and useful things, a firmer hold than you think, amice. But I am always doing what I can't do yet in order to learn how to do it. But writing you about this bores me. So I'll end by saying that the work is difficult, and that, instead of quarreling, the fellows who paint peasants and the common people would do wisely to join hands as much as possible. Union is strength, and what we have to fight against is not each other but those fellows who, even in the present period, are obstructing the progress of the ideas which Millet and others of a past generation fought for and which they pioneered. Nothing is a greater hindrance than this fatal fighting among ourselves.

Letter R57
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what