Letter 3, page 1
Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 12 April 1888, Letter 3, page 1
Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007
My dear old Bernard,
Thanks for your kind letter and the sketch of your decoration included with it, which I find really
amusing. I sometimes regret that I can't decide to work more at home and from the imagination.
Certainly—imagination is a capacity that must be developed, and only that enables us to create a
more exalting and consoling nature than what just a glance at reality (which we perceive changing,
passing quickly like lightning) allows us to perceive.
A starry sky, for example, well—it's a thing that I should like to try to do, just as in the daytime
I'll try to paint a green meadow studded with dandelions.
But how to arrive at that unless I decide to work at home and from the imagination? This,
then, to criticize myself and to praise you.
At present I am busy with the fruit trees in blossom: pink peach trees, yellow-white pear trees.
© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Letter 3, page 2
Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 12 April 1888, Letter 3, page 2
Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007
I follow no system of brushwork at all, I hit the canvas with irregular strokes, which I leave as
they are, impastos, uncovered spots of canvas—corners here and there left inevitably unfinished—
reworkings, roughnesses; well, I'm inclined to think that the result is sufficiently worrying and
annoying not to please people with preconceived ideas about technique.
Here's a sketch, by the way, the entrance to a Provençal orchard with its yellow reed fences,
with its shelter (against the mistral), black cypresses, with its typical vegetables of various greens,
yellow lettuces, onions and garlic and emerald leeks.
While always working directly on the spot, I try to capture the essence in the drawing—then
I fill the spaces demarcated by the outlines (expressed or not) but felt in every case, likewise with
simplified tints, in the sense that everything
© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Letter 3, page 3
Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 12 April 1888, Letter 3, page 3
Orchard surrounded by cypresses
Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007
The first paragraph of this letter addresses a central issue of debate between van Gogh, Bernard, and Gauguin. Bernard and Gauguin favored working from the imagination, producing what they called abstractions, while van Gogh felt a pressing need to work directly from nature, which presented its own obstacles. Van Gogh mused about painting outdoors after sundown, "A starry sky, for example, well—it's a thing that I should like to try to do. . . . But how to arrive at that unless I decide to work at home and from the imagination?" Seven months later van Gogh depicted his first evening sky, and the following year he produced his nocturnal masterpiece, Starry Night, now in the Museum of Modern Art.
In order to communicate essential information about his use of color, van Gogh described at length the pigments he used and their intended effect. Here he wrote of his recent paintings of fruit trees in blossom, proud of his unconventional brushwork—the impasto for which he is famed—and idiosyncratic use of color. Satisfied with his departure from convention, van Gogh assumed that "the result is sufficiently worrying and annoying not to please people with preconceived ideas about technique." He then quarter turned the sheet and quickly drafted a sketch after his first version of a painting of a Provençal orchard.
Letter 3, page 4
Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 12 April 1888, Letter 3, page 4
Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007
that will be earth will share the same purplish
tint, that the whole sky will have a blue tonality, that the greenery will either be blue greens or
yellow greens, deliberately exaggerating the yellow or blue values in that case. Anyway, my dear
pal, no trompe l'oeil in any case. As for going to visit Aix, Marseille, Tangier, no fear; if I were to go
there, however, it would be in search of cheaper lodgings, etc. Otherwise, I'm convinced that if I
worked my whole life, couldn't do as much as half of all that is characteristic of this town alone.
By the way, have seen bullfights in the arenas, or rather, simulated fights, seeing that the bulls
were numerous but nobody was fighting them. But the crowd was magnificent, great multicolored
crowds. One on top of the other on two, three tiers, with the effect of sun and shade and the
shadow of the immense circle. Wish you bon voyage—handshake in thought, your friend
Vincent
© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam