Letter 03/21/1883 - by Vincent van Gogh

The scribble overleaf is from a drawing I started early this morning and toiled on all day. It is perhaps the best I have done so far, at least in the use of light and brown. I am sending you this scribble, although I can't possibly work on this paper in such a way that the same strengths show up - this is out of proportion and the drawing has more foreground - because I think that you will be able to see from it what I have gained by the change of lighting in the studio. The figure is posed against the light, and to represent this it needs something more than an outline; because the light falls from a single source, the modeling gains in character and the strong points are in harmony with each other and reach a mutual rapport. In the first place this conception brings with it the difficulties of representing what you can see, but also something else, which means you have to work hard at it: that is the problem of placing a figure in such a way and getting the light to fall just so, [so] that the character stands out best and most complete. Whatever you see outside or inside has to be analyzed in relation to the light to such an extent that it can be retraced.