Get to work now
Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Drenthe, 3 November 1883
Well, dear fellow, what I advise you is something quite new. "The faith of a coalminer" in art, instead of saying (and to me it is twaddle), I can't do anything, I am not an artist, do not attribute qualities to me that I do not possess, and all that rubbish. I tell you this is a delusion, and now, my dear fellow, things are so serious, and your future and mine are so terribly dependent on them that you must not take it amiss if I tell you a little baldly that the right thing to do under the circumstances is to undertake painting with the faith of a coalminer. . . .
Perhaps, or rather, assuredly, we were mistaken in not starting on it sooner, but this mistake is understandable on account of our education and the influences we were submitted to; but this is all the more reason to get to work now with a steadiness and a resolution which I doubt we should have had at our disposal in our younger days. So it appears to me that we must concentrate our whole energy on painting with the utmost singleness of purpose - it being the raft that will take us safely to shore after the shipwreck - undertaking it in all cheerfulness.
Letter 339b
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
Well, dear fellow, what I advise you is something quite new. "The faith of a coalminer" in art, instead of saying (and to me it is twaddle), I can't do anything, I am not an artist, do not attribute qualities to me that I do not possess, and all that rubbish. I tell you this is a delusion, and now, my dear fellow, things are so serious, and your future and mine are so terribly dependent on them that you must not take it amiss if I tell you a little baldly that the right thing to do under the circumstances is to undertake painting with the faith of a coalminer. . . .
Perhaps, or rather, assuredly, we were mistaken in not starting on it sooner, but this mistake is understandable on account of our education and the influences we were submitted to; but this is all the more reason to get to work now with a steadiness and a resolution which I doubt we should have had at our disposal in our younger days. So it appears to me that we must concentrate our whole energy on painting with the utmost singleness of purpose - it being the raft that will take us safely to shore after the shipwreck - undertaking it in all cheerfulness.
Letter 339b
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
Back to The Way of Vincent: Making art no matter what
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