It was also untrue that van Gogh despised Bouguereau's work. Critics like to point to one letter where van Gogh said that he would be able to sell his paintings more readily if he painted pretty things like Bouguereau.
They always conveniently overlook another letter in which van Gogh expresses his deep disappointment that he'll never be able to draw as well as Bouguereau, and yet another,
I know very well that it is neither drawn nor painted as correctly as a Bouguereau, and I rather regret this, because I have an earnest desire to be correct. But though it is doomed, alas, to be neither a Cabanel nor a Bouguereau, yet I hope that it will be French.
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