simple enough

But I don't think you express clearly enough what it is you want us to feel: the certainty which one seems to have, and which one can, in any case, prove, of the nothingness, the emptiness, the treachery of the good or beautiful things one desires; and how, despite this knowledge, we allow ourselves to be eternally deceived by the charm cast over our 6 senses by the external world, by things outside ourselves, as though we understood nothing, and especially not the difference between objectivity and subjectivity. Luckily for us, we remain in this way both stupid and full of hope ...

There are so many people, especially among our pals, who imagine that words are nothing: but, on the contrary, it's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint it, isn't it? There is the art of lines and colours, but the art of words exists too, and will never be less important.

Here's a fresh orchard, simple enough as a composition: a white tree, a small green tree, a square patch of green, lilac soil, an orange roof, a big blue sky.

-- Vincent Van Gogh Letter to Emile Bernard 20 April 1888
Translated by Douglas Lord