Van Gogh’s love was always deeply engaged, impassioned, never non-committal. He wrote: ‘I regard love – as I do friendship – not only as a feeling but chiefly as an action – and particularly when it involves working and is an effort, it has another side of fatigue and powerlessness. Where people love sincerely and in good faith, they are blessed I believe, although that doesn’t dispel difficult times’.
Vincent van Gogh (1890) collection Van Gogh Museum