一）
土色燦紫--天色鉻黃-- 映變於地，諸多諧合。然予無執於色之辨真，寧圖以稚拙，類彼見於鄉村古曆者。無論雹雪雨晴，彼古曆均能以初簡法圖之。Anquetin氏嚐以《農收》一畫大善其法。君知否，予情淑鄉野甚，以長於斯也。點滴所記，玄黃之念，像播農束稈，神予心如昨焉。然予念念者明星在天，何日得至之於素哉？嗚呼！若有君子曰：閑臥煙草，得諸神遊而未得諸筆下者，畫之至善者也。
然畫人必恒習之，弗以天地有大善至華而患人力之窮也。
村紫，太陽黃，天藍翠。麥色盡分以古金、新銅、翠金、朱金、黃金、銅黃、翠朱。予用畫素30號，正方，作畫於勁風中。畫架以鐵固於地，予以為此善法可廣之。先入架腳於地，橫加以鐵一尺半者數，繩以連之，則勁風無患矣。
又告：《播農》一畫上黃下紫，農人褲白，以間黃紫相薄之欲滿而迸，亦以懈觀者目也。此黑白二色之用也。
（二）
請警君聽，聞人病予作畫疾甚，必莫信之。
夫宰畫人者，莫非向天地之心，垂萬物之情。及心情壯烈，不以畫為役而畫成。前筆生後筆，若連語成言，連字成文。然予輩須省此弗可久持，來者或有苦靈之不至者。是夫，宜趁熱打鐵，且蓄之以備也。
（三）
莫以予戀執狂狀。君鑒，予今得畫絡繹皆以腹有成稿先。謀劃審度曠日繁難，方得下筆如風。故若聞人言予畫病速成，請答以曰：君病速觀。再者，予今出畫於君必先複筆一二以全之。畫成而收，予亦非逸於農收之人也哉。然予無怨，反以為畫者依性樂命之時，雖非真命亦無害焉。
（一）（18 June, 1888 H. Anna Suh: p203）
(...land ...blatantly violet...The sky chrome yellow...) There are many echoes of yellow in the soil, neutral tones resulting from the mixing of violet and yellow; but I bothered hardly at all about the truth of the colors. I'd rather produce naive images of the kind in old almanacs, those old country almanacs in which hail, snow, rain, and fine weather are represented in an entirely primitive manner, like that used so successfully by Anquetin in his Harvest. I must confess to you that I am actually quite fond of the countryside, having been brought up there -- snatches of memories, a longing for the infinite -- of which the sower ad the sheaf are symbols -- still enchant me now as they did in the past. But when shall I get round to doing this picture of the starry sky that has been so much in my thoughts? Alas, alas! It is just as that excellent fellow Cyprien says in J.K. Huysmans' En Menage (Living Together): the finest pictures are those you dream about while you are lying in bed smoking a pipe, but what you never actually paint.
But you have to try, no matter how incompetent you feel in the face of that unspeakable perfection, those glorious splendors of nature.
The town violet, the celestial body yellow, the sky blue-green. The wheat is all in tones of old gold, copper, green-gold, red-gold, yellow-gold, bronze-yellow, green-red. A size 30 canvas, square. I painted it when the mistral was blowing hard, my easel fixed to the ground with iron pegs, a device I can recommend. You drive the legs of the easel into the ground, then alongside them fifty centimeter long iron pegs. Then you tie it all together with ropes. And that way you can work in the wind.
What I wanted to say about white and black is this. Let's take the Sower. The picture is divided in two: one half -- the upper part -- is yellow, the lower part is violet. Now the white trousers relax the eye and distract it just at the moment when the simultaneous, excessive contrast of the yellow and violet begins to jar. That's what I wanted to say.
（二）
I must warn you that everyone will think that I work too fast.
Don't you believe a word of it.
Is it not emotion, the sincerity of one's feeling for nature, that draws us, and if the emotions are sometimes so strong that one works without knowing one works, when sometimes the strokes come with a continuity and a coherence like words in a speech or a letter, then one must remember that it has not always been so, and that in time to come there will again be hard days, empty of inspiration.
So one must strike while the iron is hot, and put the forged bars on one side.
（三）
Don’t believe, then, that I would artificially maintain a feverish state — but you should know that I’m in the middle of a complicated calculation that results in canvases done quickly one after another but calculated long beforehand. And look, when people say they’re done too quickly you’ll be able to reply that they looked at them too quickly. And besides, I’m now going over all the canvases a little more before sending them to you.
But during the harvest my work has been no easier than that of the farmers themselves who do this harvesting. Far from my complaining about it, it’s precisely at these moments in artistic life, even if it’s not the real one, that I feel almost as happy as I could be in the ideal, the real life.
