Letter 10, page 1

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Vincent van Gogh, letter to Émile Bernard, Arles, 15 July 1888, Letter 10, page 1

Thaw Collection, given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007

MA 6441.10
Translation: 

My dear old Bernard.
Perhaps you will be disposed to forgive me for not having replied to your letter straightaway, seeing
that I'm attaching a small batch of sketches to this one.

In the sketch The Garden, there is perhaps something like "the shaggy carpets of flowers and
woven greenery" of Crivelli or Virelli, doesn't much matter. Ah, well—in any case I wanted to reply
to your quotations with my pen, but not by writing words. Today, too, I don't have much of a head for
discussion; I'm up to my ears in work.

Have made large pen drawings—2—an immense flat expanse of country—seen in bird's-eye view
from the top of a hill—vineyards, reaped fields of wheat, all of it multiplied endlessly, streaming away
like the surface of a sea toward the horizon bounded by the hillocks of La Crau.

It does NOT look Japanese, and it's actually the most Japanese thing that I've done.

© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam