"[I]nstead of reproducing exactly what I see before me, I treat the colouring in a perfectly arbitrary fashion. ...What I aim at above all is powerful expression. ...Just suppose that I am to paint the portrait of an artist friend—an artist who dreams great dreams and who works as the nightingale sings, simply because it it is his nature to do so. ...All the love I feel for him I should like to reveal in my painting ...To begin with ...I paint him just as he is, as faithfully as possible still this is only the beginning. ...Now I begin to apply the colour arbitrarily. I exaggerate the tone of his fair hair; I take orange, chrome, and dull lemon yellow. Behind his head, instead of the trivial wall of the room I paint infinity. I make a simple background out of the richest of blues, as strong as my palette will allow. And thus, owing to this simple combination, the fair and luminous head has the mysterious effect, upon the rich blue background, of a star suspended in dark ether. ...But one ought to picture this sort of fellow in the scorching noonday sun, in the midst of the harvest. Hence this flaming orange, like a red-hot iron; hence the luminous shadows like old gold. ...[W]e wish to show that this reading has become part of our flesh and blood. I can only choose between being a good and a bad painter. I choose the former."