Paul Gauguin on Vincent van Gogh

“In my yellow room, sunflowers with purple eyes stand out against a yellow background; the ends of their stalks bathe in a yellow pot on a yellow table. In one corner of the painting, the painter's signature: Vincent. And the yellow sun, coming through the yellow curtains of my room, floods all this flowering with gold, and in the morning, when I wake up in my bed, I have the impression that it all smells very good. Oh yes! he loved yellow, did good Vincent, the painter from Holland, gleams of sunlight warming his soul, which detested fog. A craving for warmth. When the two of us were together in Arles, both of us insane, and constantly at war over beautiful colors, I adored red; where could I find a perfect vermilion? He, taking his yellowest brush, wrote on the suddenly purple wall: I am of sound mind, I am the Holy Ghost.”

“In my yellow room, a small still life; this one violet. – Two enormous, worn, deformed shoes. Vincent's shoes. Those he took, one bright, new morning, then, to make his way on foot from Holland to Belgium. The young priest.. ..was on his way to the mines [in the Borinage, Belgium] to see those, he called his brothers.. ..Contrary to his master's teaching, wise Dutchmen, Vincent believed in a Jesus who loved the poor.. ..Undoubtly, undoubtly, Vincent was already mad.”