ABSTRACT
It is established and accepted to-day that a painter may not like music, that a writer may yawn in a picture-gallery : though we proclaim that art is universal, it certainly is not universal for the universe. This should not surprise us who know that van Gogh wrote : “ To paint and to love women is incompatible ” ; van Gogh was right for himself, which does not mean that he was right for everybody, and I will not draw from his dictum the probably incorrect conclusion that “To paint and to love literature is incompatible.” But van Gogh, who had not read Bergson, was indicating clearly enough that he knew he must canalise his powers, therefore exclude from his emotional purview all things which did not appertain directly to his own form of art.
