Letter 03/15/1885

As for me now, I can still not show you a single painting, not even a single drawing.

But I am doing studies, and that is why I can well envisage a time ahead when I will be able to compose readily. And after all, it is difficult to say where studies end and painting begins.

I am thinking about some larger, more developed things, and once I am clear how to reproduce the effect I have in mind, I would still need to keep the relevant studies here, because I would certainly need them. It would, for instance, be something like this.

That is to say, figures against the light of a window. I have made studies of heads for it, both against the light and with the light in front, and several times I have worked on the whole figure: winding threads, sewing, or peeling potatoes. Full face and in profile, it is a difficult effect. But I think I have, in fact, learned a few more things.