Letter 10/13/1888 - by Vincent van Gogh

I've just painted this red and green carriage in the courtyard of the inn. See what you think. This quick sketch gives you an idea of the composition: a simple gray, sandy foreground; the background very simple too, pink and yellow walls with green shutters and a patch of blue sky. The two carriages are brightly colored, green and red, the wheels yellow, black, blue, and orange. Again a size 30 canvas. The carriages are painted in the style of Monticelli, with thickly applied paint. You once had a very fine Monet of four colored boats on a beach. Well, here it's carriages, but the composition is of the same kind.

Now imagine a huge, blue-green fir tree, with horizontal branches reaching out over a very green lawn and sand speckled with light and shade.

This very simple stretch of garden is enlivened by beds of orange lead geraniums in the distance, under the black branches.

A pair of lovers in the shade of the big tree; a size 30 canvas.

And then two more size 30 canvases: the Trinquetaille bridge and another bridge over the road where the railway passes.

In coloring this particular canvas is a little like a Bosboom.

The one of Trinquetaille bridge, with all those steps, is one I did on a gray morning; the stone, the asphalt, the paving are gray, the sky pale blue, some small colored figures, a sickly looking tree with yellow leaves. So two canvases in broken tones of gray and two brightly colored ones.