Van Gogh had a profoundly and intensely intimate relation with painting, with the act of painting itself.

His late paintings show an artist at the height of his abilities, completely in control, and according to art critic Robert Hughes, "longing for concision and grace". The life of a painter: evolution from deciding to try it out, to learning and struggling, to finding personal style and meaning, to persevering against critics. The works of his early Dutch period are somber-toned, sharply lit, genre paintings of which the most famous is "The Potato Eaters" (1885).His paintings include portraits, self portraits, landscapes, still lifes, olive trees and cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers. would immediately see through him, but instead as a true friend of mine, a man who loved artists and people above art, saw the world in its beauty and splendor in shades, light and types of paint. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolours, drawings, sketches and prints. Margot thankfully survived, but it did mean the end of their relationship: she moved to live with a doctor she knew in Utrecht, and Vincent eventually moved to Antwerp. I came to understand his selections based on these letters explaining in great detail why he chose specific colors to use in his paintings.

Now and then the editor will insert snippets of Van Gogh's life and circumstances at the time of the letter so that we have a good context for the letter we are reading. At some point, the constant practice of his craft would have allowed him to paint pictures that would sell. But that would have been a departure from that place where his heart's joy met what he saw as the world's need. He signed his paintings with ‘Vincent’, because French people had difficulty pronouncing ‘Van Gogh’.

I enjoyed reading Van Gogh's description of his images and later looking at images of the painting in another book. Hughes closes and essay saying that Van Gogh was a great painter in spite of his madness, not because of it - and having read his letters, I'm inclined to agree.