Vincent's
former mentor Anton Mauve died in March 1888.ln memory, van Gogh wrote "Souvenir de Mauve" on the earier pict
P 312). Ar chis time he atempted to clarify his relations with dhe mas
r of The Hague School in a leter (W3) to his sister in which he ia
to assess his own use of colour: "You realise that Nature in the sou
Mauve belonged in the north and remains the master of grey. Bu
oday's palette is thoroughly colourful: sky
blue, orange, vermilion
achieve peace and harmony once again. This unmistakably remind
us of the problem Signac articulated. But Vincent was convinced
that the south and colour were synonymous. Japan alone could not
ic Jug wit account for the intensity of his palette. The Orient prompted the spa
ial flatness and the large zones of colour, the abrupt shifts in perpe
5x 46 cm
tive, and that charming lightness of touch(which had to be reconciled
to his own vehemence in the deployment of colour). The eloquent use
of light in his paintings was perhaps a common ground where the dif
ferences in his infuences met: the Japanese had thought the problem
of light to be of fairly secondary importance, while the Impressionists
ubordinated everything to it. Van Gogh harmonized their concepts
by distinguishing between light which came from outside and sour
of light inherent in things. All his energy went into creative work that
oncentrated on the latter. Even the immense sun that was soon to rse
in his work was depicted only in terms of its own luminous power the
fact that in reality it makes everything else visible was of no interet
to van Gogh. To him, not even the sun was an outside source of.
gh
