At the moment I’m really in the shit, studies, studies, studies, and that’ll go on for some time yet – such a mess that it breaks my heart – and yet that’ll give me neatness when I’m 40. From time to time a canvas that makes a painting, such as that sower, which I too think is better than the first one.
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ResetI don’t yet know what Gauguin thinks about my decoration in general; I only know that there are some studies that he really does like, namely, the Sower, the Sunflowers, the Bedroom.
This week I did a new study of a sower; the landscape utterly flat, the figure small and blurred.
| Artist | Eugène Delacroix |
|---|---|
| Year | ca. 1853 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 50.8 cm × 61 cm (20 in × 21 in) |
| Location | The Met, New York City |
Yesterday and today I worked on the sower, which has been completely reworked. The sky is yellow and green, the earth purple and orange. There’s definitely a painting like that to be made of this splendid subject, and I hope it will be done one day, either by someone else or by me. The question remains this—Christ’s boat by Eugène Delacroix and Millet’s sower are of entirely different workmanship. Christ’s boat—I’m talking about the blue and green sketch with touches of purple and red and a little lemon yellow for the halo, the aureole—speaks a symbolic language through color itself. Millet’s sower is colorless grey—as are Israëls’s paintings too. Can we now paint the sower with color, with simultaneous contrast between yellow and purple for example (like Delacroix’s Apollo ceiling, which is precisely yellow and purple), yes or no? Yes—definitely. So do it then!