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Famous Vincent Van Gogh
Quotes
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A good picture is equivalent to a
good deed. |
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As we advance in life it becomes
more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the
inmost strength of the heart is developed. |
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As practice makes perfect,
I cannot but make progress; each drawing one makes, each study one
paints, is a step forward. Letter to
Theo van Gogh, c.29 October 1883 |
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Cobalt is a divine color
and there is nothing as fine for putting an atmosphere round things.
Carmine is the red of wine and is warm and lively like wine. The same
goes for emerald green too. It's false economy to dispense with them,
with those colors. Cadmium as well.
Letter to Theo van Gogh, 28 December 1885 |
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Color in a picture is like
enthusiasm in life. |
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Do not quench your inspiration and
your imagination; do not become the slave of your model. |
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Great things are done by a series of
small things brought together. |
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Great things are not done by
impulse, but a series of small things brought together. |
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Happiness... it lies in the joy of
achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. |
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How can I be useful, of what service
can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be? |
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I am not an adventurer by choice but
by fate. |
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I am still far from being what I want to be,
but with God's help I shall succeed. |
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I dream my painting, and then I
paint my dream. |
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I often think that the night is more
alive and more richly colored than the day. |
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I put my heart and my soul into my work, and
have lost my mind in the process. |
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I see more and more that my
work goes infinitely better when I am properly fed, and the paints are
there, and the studio and all that. But have I set my heart on my work
being a success? A thousand times no. I wish I could manage to make you
really understand that when you give money to artists, you are yourself
doing an artist's work, and that I only want my pictures to be of such a
quality that you will not be too dissatisfied with your work. |
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I want to touch people with my art.
I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly. |
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I wish they would only take me as I
am.
Dear Theo: Autobiography of Vincent
Van Gogh. |
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If boyhood and youth are but vanity,
must it not be our ambition to become men? |
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If one is master of one thing and
understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight
into and understanding of many things. |
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If you hear a voice within you say
"you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will
be silenced. |
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In an artist's life, death is
perhaps no the most difficult thing. |
Indigo with terra sienna, Prussian blue with
burnt sienna, really give much deeper tones than pure black itself. When
I hear people say ‘there is no black in nature’, I sometimes think,
‘There is no real black in colors either’. However, you must beware of
falling into the error of thinking that the colorists do not use black,
for of course as soon as an element of blue, red, or yellow is mixed
with black, it becomes a gray, namely, a dark, reddish, yellowish, or
bluish gray.
Letter to Theo van Gogh, June 1884 |
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It is not the language of painters
but the language of nature which one should listen to, the
feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important
than the feeling for pictures. |
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Love is something eternal, the
aspect may change, but not the essence. Love many things, for
therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much
performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love
is done well. |
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Nature always begins by resisting the artist,
but he who really takes it seriously he will not be put off by that
opposition. Letter to Theo van Gogh,
c.12 October 1881 |
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One may have a blazing hearth in
one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see
only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way. |
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The best way to know God is to love
many things. |
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The emotions are sometimes so strong that I
work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech. |
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The great artist is the simplifier. |
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The Mediterranean has the color of
mackerel, changeable I mean. You don't always know if it is
green or violet, you can't even say it's blue, because the next
moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or
gray. |
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The more I think about it, the more
I realize there is nothing more artistic that to love others. |
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The night is even more richly
colored than the day . . . If only you pay attention to it you will see
that certain stars are citron-yellow, others have a pink glow, or a
green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without expatiating on
this theme it should be clear that putting little white dots on a blue-
black surface is not enough. |
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There is no blue without yellow and
without orange. |
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There may be a great fire in our
hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the
passers-by see only a wisp of smoke. |
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What would life be if we had no
courage to attempt anything? |
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When I have a terrible need of -
shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the
stars. |
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You can't be at the pole and the equator at
the same time. You must choose your own line, as I hope to do, and it
will probably be color. |
