I Dream My Painting And I

Written from Arles in 1888, during the most concentrated burst of painting in van Gogh's career, this line appears in a letter to Theo written while he was working on his nocturnal paintings, including Starry Night Over the Rhône. He described using vivid, unnatural colour — prussian blue for night skies, bright yellows for gaslight — to express mood and vision rather than observed reality, making the connection between dreaming and painting literal.