Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

080. Gauguin, page 2

Vincent van Gogh, letter to Paul Gauguin, Arles, 17 October 1888, page 2

MA 6447

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

Translation

Ah, well, it amused me enormously doing this bare interior.

With a simplicity à la Seurat. In flat tints, but coarsely brushed in full impasto, the
walls pale lilac, the floor in a broken and faded red, the chairs and the bed chrome yellow, the pillows
and the sheet very pale lemon green, the bedspread blood red, the dressing table orange, the
washbasin blue, the window green. I had wished to express utter repose with all these very different
tones, you see, among which the only white is the little note given by the mirror with a black frame
(to cram in the fourth pair of complementaries as well).

Anyway, you'll see it with the others, and we'll talk about it. Because I often don't know

© 2007 Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam