A house Theo, I've found a house; a place of my own where I can work without trouble, and...

Vincent Van Gogh: [In letter] A house Theo, I've found a house; a place of my own where I can work without trouble, and where there's plenty of room. Brunner lent me a mattress to get started and I bought some chairs and a bed and few other things that were necessary. With this, and with what I spent on paints and canvas, my money for the month is almost gone - but it was worth it. Oh Theo, you'd like this house. It's yellow on the outside and filled with sunshine. Later, two could live in it. One day perhaps Gaugin will come, and then who knows, this might turn into a colony of painters. I'm up at dawn and out on the road. Now that summer's begun it's all very different here from what it was in the spring, but I love it even more. Everywhere is old gold, bronze, and copper. I wish you could see these lovely days here Theo, but if not, you shall see pictures of them, for these colors give me an extraordinary exaltation. The whole earth is glowing under the southern sun - lemon yellow, sulfur yellow, greenish yellow - all under a sky blanched with heat. What a country it is. It absorbs me so much that I let myself go, never thinking of a single rule. I have no doubts, no limitations. I'm working like a steam engine; devouring paints, burning up canvasses. Whole days go by without my speaking to anyone. And every day my concentration becomes more intense, my hand more sure. I have a power of color in me that I never had before, a sense of breadth and strength. The summer has vanished in a fever of work and now the mistral is blowing. Always the wind restless and unceasing, sweeping among the dead leaves in a rage so that I'm forced to remain indoors. Now and then when the storm inside me gets too loud, I take a glass too much to distract me. I must watch out for my nerves, I'm getting haggard I know. If I go on this way, some day or other there may be a crisis, yet I can't stop. Sometimes I work on into the night - I'm hardly conscious of myself anymore - and the pictures come to me as in a dream with a terrible lucidity.