IDENTITY
Letter 499 — Millet, white and tonal colour
Nuenen, 1885
Content Summary
Van Gogh reflects on Millet and other admired painters while considering the use of white and the possibility of keeping light effects strongly coloured rather than simply lightening them toward white.
CONTEXT
Topics
Colour Theory, White, Tonal Relationships, Colour Intensity, Millet, Working Method
Materials & Pigments
White
Related People
Vincent van Gogh, Theo van Gogh, Jean-François Millet, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, Jozef Israëls, Jules Dupré
Paintings
RESEARCH
Quotation
I do not say that Millet doesn’t use any white when he paints snow
Research Focus
The passage shows Van Gogh thinking about value and colour together, using admired painters as points of comparison while questioning how light can remain chromatically active.
Related Work / Relevance
SOURCES & EVIDENCE
Source Type
Letter
Source
Source Edition
Vincent van Gogh — The Letters, scholarly online edition (Van Gogh Museum / Huygens ING; website version December 2024)
Source URL
Evidence Type
Primary Source, Scholarly Annotation
Related Readings