“[N]othing appeared more sacred to [Van Gogh] than work. He saw the physical reality of labor as being, simultaneously, a necessity, an injustice, and the essence of humanity throughout history. The artist’s creative act was for him only one among many such acts. He believed that reality could best be approached through work, precisely because reality itself was a form of production.”
— John Berger, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos
