I know no other way

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, from Nuenen, c 24 January 1885

All the time I am working at various heads and hands.

I have also drawn some again, perhaps you would find something in them, perhaps not, I can't help it. I repeat, I know no other way.

But I can't understand that you say: perhaps later on we shall admire even the things done now.

If I were you, I should have so much self-confidence and independent opinion that I should know whether I could see now what there was or was not in a thing.

Well, you must know those things for yourself.

Letter 393
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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