I didn’t even get a good view of Van Gogh museum when I visited it last August, because it was under renovation. But it didn’t disappoint.

Out of all the marvelous paintings and curious personal artifacts, one letter written by Nicole Krauss has kept coming back to my mind. It was literally printed on three pieces of A4-sized paper, and these black and white pages seemed quite out of place with the rest colorful exhibits. This letter is in response to a letter van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in 1884. One hundred thirty one years later, Krauss wrote her letter to van Gogh in 2015.

The letter begins by talking about artist’s fear, the fear of a blank canvass, and then it delves into the origin of the fear, and says that it is within one’s power to break preconditioned or perceived “nature” of ourselves, fear included, and chose to do something, to break the loop of “nature”, and make a mark on that canvass.

Van Gogh’s original letter can be found here; Krauss’s letter here.

PS. Photos are not good. I was not supposed to take photos in the museum…

PPS. Vincent van Gogh page from Artsy. Thank Diana C from Artsy for reaching out.