Letter to Theo, 11 or 12 May 1890


My dear brother,
Many thanks for your registered letter, containing 150 fr. – which arrived this morning. Also I received canvases and paints from Tasset and L’Hôte (were the ones from Tanguy in the same package?) and I cannot be too grateful to you for them, for if I had not had my work, I should long ago have been even more broken. At present all goes well, the whole horrible attack has disappeared like a thunderstorm and I am working to give a last stroke of the brush here with a calm and steady enthusiasm. I am doing a canvas of roses with a light green background and two canvases representing big bunches of violet irises, one lot against a pink background in which the effect is soft and harmonious because of the combination of greens, pinks, violets.
On the other hand, the other violet bunch (ranging from carmine to pure Prussian blue)...

...stands out against a startling citron background, with other yellow tones in the vase and the stand on which it rests,...

...so it is an effect of tremendously disparate complementaries,

...which strengthen each other by their juxtaposition.



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Van Gogh Museum