Letter 05/20/1888 - by Vincent van Gogh

I've done a still life with a blue enamel metal coffeepot, a royal blue cup and saucer, a checkered milk jug in pale cobalt and white, a cup with orange and blue patterns on a white background, a blue majolica jug with green, brown, and pink flowers and leaves. All this on a blue tablecloth, against a yellow background and with two oranges and three lemons among the crockery.

So it's a variation on blue, enlivened by a series of yellows ranging to orange.

Then I have another still life: lemons in a basket on a yellow background.

Then a view of Aries. All that can be seen of the town are a few red roofs and a tower, the rest is hidden by the foliage of the fig trees and far off in the background, with a narrow strip of blue sky above. The town is surrounded by vast meadows filled with countless buttercups - a sea of yellow; in the foreground the meadows are cut off by a ditch full of violet iris flowers. They were cutting the grass while I was painting so it's just a study and not the finished picture I was intending to make it. But what a subject! That sea of yellow with a band of violet irises and in the distance this charming little town with its pretty women! Then two studies of roadsides - done later - when the mistral was blowing hard.