I don’t know if you’ll understand that one can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music. In the same way the bizarre lines, sought out and multiplied, and snaking all over the painting, aren’t intended to render the garden in its vulgar resemblance but draw it for us as if seen in a dream, in character and yet at the same time stranger than the reality.
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ResetAnother hard day’s work today. If you saw my canvases, what would you say about them — you wouldn’t find Cézanne’s almost diffident and conscientious brushstroke there. But since at present I’m painting the same countryside of La Crau and the Camargue — although in a slightly different place – nevertheless, certain color relationships could remain. What do I know about it — from time to time I couldn’t help thinking of Cézanne, particularly when I realized that his touch is so clumsy in certain studies – disregard the word clumsy — seeing that he probably executed those studies when the mistral was blowing. Having to deal with the same difficulty half the time, I can explain why Cézanne’s touch is sometimes so sure and sometimes seems awkward. It’s his easel that’s wobbling.
I’ve sometimes worked excessively fast; is that a fault? I can’t help it. For example I’ve painted a no. 30 canvas — the summer evening — at a single sitting. It’s not possible to rework it; to destroy it — why, because I deliberately went outside to make it, out in the mistral. Isn’t it rather intensity of thought than calmness of touch that we’re looking for — and in the given circumstances of impulsive work on the spot and from life, is a calm and controlled touch always possible? Well — it seems to me — no more than fencing moves during an attack.