“Dans ma chambre jaune, des fleurs de soleil, aux yeux pourpres, se détachent sur un fond jaune; elles se baignent le pied dans un pot jaune, sur une table jaune.”(9)
(In my yellow room, purple-eyed yellow flowers stand out against a yellow background, bathing their feet in a yellow pot, on a yellow table.)
(English translation)
GAUGUIN: It was in Arles that I met Vincent van Gogh, after numerous solicitations on his part.
VAN GOGH: My dear Gauguin, thank you especially for your promise to come.
GAUGUIN: He aimed to found l’Atelier du Midi and I was to be head of it.
VAN GOGH: Of course, due to your illness, you will be delaying you journey.
GAUGUIN: This poor Dutchman was so very eager and enthusiastic. Reading Tartarin of Tarascon made him believe in an extraordinary South, to be expressed in jets of flames.
VAN GOGH: But, apart from this, I almost envy you for this journey that will show you so many parts of the country, all different in nature, all so splendorous in autumn.
GAUGUIN: And on his canvas the chromes sprang up, flooding with sun the Provençal farmhouses, all the plain of Camargue.
VAN GOGH: The emotion produced by my journey from Paris to Arles, last winter, is still fresh in my memory.
GAUGUIN: In my yellow room, purple-eyed yellow flowers stand out against a yellow background, bathing their feet in a yellow pot, on a yellow table. 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.
VAN GOGH: It will probably be of a great advantage to a great deal of artists in love with sun and colour to emigrate to the South.
