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Watch out, brother,’ his professor had told him more than once, ‘you have talent; it would be a sin to ruin it. But you’re impatient. Some one thing entices you, some one thing takes your fancy––and you occupy yourself with it, and the rest can rot, you don’t care about it, you don’t even want to look at it. Watch out you don’t turn into a fashionable painter. Even now your colors are beginning to cry a bit too loudly. Your drawing is imprecise, and sometimes quite weak, the line doesn’t show; you go for fashionable lighting, which strikes the eye at once. Watch out or you’ll fall into the English type. Beware. You already feel drawn to the world: every so often I see a showy scarf on your neck, a glossy hat … It’s enticing, you can start painting fashionable pictures, little portraits for money. But that doesn’t develop talent, it ruins it. Be patient. Ponder over every work, drop showiness––let the others make money. You won’t come out the loser.
