|
|
VINCENT VAN GOGH:
Excerpts from the Letters
MY BRUSH STROKE HAS NO SYSTEM
To Emile Bernard, Arles, April 1888 (B3, p. 478)
At the moment I am absorbed in the blooming fruit trees, pink peach trees,
yellow-white pear trees. My brush stroke has no system at all. I hit the canvas with
irregular touches of the brush, which I leave as they are. Patches of thickly laid-on
color, spots of canvas left uncovered, here and there portions that are left absolutely
unfinished, repetitions, savageries; in short, I am inclined to think that the result is
so disquieting and irritating as to be a godsend to those people who have fixed
preconceived ideas about technique. For that matter here is a sketch, the entrance
to a Provencal orchard with its yellow fences, its enclosure of black cypresses
(against the mistral), its characteristic vegetables of varying greens: yellow lettuces,
onions, garlic, emerald leeks.
Working directly on the spot all the time, I try to grasp what is essential
in the drawing-later I H11 in the spaces which are bounded by contours-either
expressed or not, but in any case felt-with tones which are also simplified, by
which I mean that all that is going to be soil will share the same violet-like tone,
that the whole sky will have a blue tint, that the green vegetation will be either
green-blue or green-yellow, purposely exaggerating the yellows and blues in this
case.
In short, my dear comrade, in no case an eye-deceiving job.
|
|
|
|
|
|
