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I Believe That It May Happen That One Will Succeed, And One Must Not Begin To Despair, Even Though Defeated Here And There; And Even Though One Sometimes Feels A Kind Of Decay, Though Things Go Differently From The Expected, It Is Necessary To Take Heart Again And New Courage. For The Great Things Are Not Done By Impulse, But By A Series Of Small Things Brought Together. And Great Things Are Not Something Accidental, But Must Certainly Be Willed. What Is Drawing? How Does One Learn It? It Is Working Through An Invisible Iron Wall That Seems To Stand Between What One Feels And What One Can Do.

-Vincent Van Gogh

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I Believe That It

Vincent Van Gogh

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I Believe That It May Happen That One Will Succeed, And One Must Not Begin To Despair, Even Though Defeated Here And There; And Even Though One Sometimes Feels A Kind Of Decay, Though Things Go Differently From The Expected, It Is Necessary To Take Heart Again And New Courage. For The Great Things Are Not Done By Impulse, But By A Series Of Small Things Brought Together. And Great Things Are Not Something Accidental, But Must Certainly Be Willed. What Is Drawing? How Does One Learn It? It Is Working Through An Invisible Iron Wall That Seems To Stand Between What One Feels And What One Can Do.

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Painting It Was Hard Graft. There Are One And A Half Large Tubes Of White In The Ground - Yet That Ground Is Very Dark.

In The Fullness Of Artistic Life There Is, And Remains, And Will Always Come Back At Times, That Homesick Longing For The Truly Ideal Life That Can Never Come True.

What I Need Is Courage, And This Often Fails Me. And It Is Also A Fact That Since My Disease, When I Am In The Fields I Am Overwhelmed By A Feeling Of Loneliness To Such A Horrible Extent That I Shy Away From Going Out. But This Will Change All The Same As Time Goes On. Only When I Stand A Painting Before My Easel Do I Feel Somewhat Alive. Never Mind, This Is Going To Change Too, For Now My Health Is So Good That I Suppose The Physical Part Of Me Will Gain The Victory.

How Can I Be Useful, Of What Service Can I Be? There Is Something Inside Me, What Can It Be?

Selfless Service

One Must Spoil As Many Canvases As One Succeeds With.

I Began To Paint Again, Even Though I Could Barely Hold The Brush, But Knowing Exactly What I Wanted To Paint, I Began Three More Large Canvases... Of Large Wheat Fields Under Cloudy Skies, And It Did Not Take A Great Deal To Express Sadness And Loneliness... I Believe These Paintings Say What Words Cannot.

If I Were To Think Of And Dwell On Disastrous Possibilities, I Could Do Nothing. I Throw Myself Headlong Into My Work, And Come Up Again With My Studies.

Accurate Drawing, Accurate Colour, Is Perhaps Not The Essential Thing To Aim At, Because The Reflection Of Reality In A Mirror, If It Could Be Caught, Colour And All, Would Not Be A Picture At All, No More Than A Photograph.

For Loneliness, Worries, Difficulties, The Unsatisfied Need For Kindness And Sympathy - That Is What Is Hard To Bear.

I Am Not An Adventurer By Choice But By Fate.

A Woman Is Not Old As Long As She Loves And Is Loved

At Present I Absolutely Want To Paint A Starry Sky. It Often Seems To Me That Night Is Still More Richly Coloured Than The Day; Having Hues Of The Most Intense Violets, Blues And Greens. If Only You Pay Attention To It You Will See That Certain Stars Are Lemon-yellow, Others Pink Or A Green, Blue And Forget-me-not Brilliance. And Without My Expatiating On This Theme It Is Obvious That Putting Little White Dots On The Blue-black Is Not Enough To Paint A Starry Sky.

I Must Continue To Follow The Path I Take Now. If I Do Nothing, If I Study Nothing, If I Cease Searching, Then, Woe Is Me, I Am Lost. That Is How I Look At It — Keep Going, Keep Going Come What May. But What Is Your Final Goal, You May Ask. That Goal Will Become Clearer, Will Emerge Slowly But Surely, Much As The Rough Draught Turns Into A Sketch, And The Sketch Into A Painting Through The Serious Work Done On It, Through The Elaboration Of The Original Vague Idea And Through The Consolidation Of The First Fleeting And Passing Thought.

A Good Picture Is Equivalent To A Good Deed.

The Sight Of Stars Makes Me Dream.

I Always Dream A Painting Like That, With A Group Of Lively Figures Of The Pals.

I Tried To Express Through Red And Green The Terrible Passions Of Humanity.

Art Is Something Greater And Higher Than Our Own Skill Or Knowledge Or Learning. That Art Is Something Which, Though Produced By Human Hands, Is Not Wrought By Hands Alone, But Wells Up From A Deeper Source, From A Man's Soul.

You Can Feel The Stars And The Infinity Of The Sky Since Life, In Spite Of Everything, Is Like A Dream.

It Constantly Remains A Source Of Disappointment To Me That My Drawings Are Not Yet What I Want Them To Be. The Difficulties Are Indeed Numerous And Great, And Cannot Be Overcome At Once. To Make Progress Is A Kind Of Miner’s Work; It Doesn’t Advance As Quickly As One Would Like, And As Others Also Expect, But As One Stands Before Such A Task, The Basic Necessities Are Patience And Faithfulness. In Fact, I Do Not Think Much About The Difficulties, Because If One Thought Of Them Too Much One Would Get Stunned Or Disturbed.

I Have A Firm Faith In Art, A Firm Confidence In Its Being A Powerful Stream Which Carries A Man To A Harbor, Though He Himself Must Do His Bit Too.

I Lost My Job As An Art Salesman. It Was The Customer's Fault. He Wanted To Buy The Wrong Paintings.

Art Demands Constant Observation.

Do You Know That Drawing With Words Is Also An Art... ?

To Do Good Work One Must Eat Well, Be Well Housed, Have One's Fling From Time To Time, Smoke One's Pipe, And Drink One's Coffee In Peace

To Express Hope By Some Star, The Eagerness Of A Soul By A Sunset Radiance. Certainly There Is Nothing In That Of Stereoscopic Realism, But Is It Not Something That Actually Exists?

If You Work With Love And Intelligence, You Develop A Kind Of Armour Against People's Opinions, Just Because Of The Sincerity Of Your Love For Nature And Art. Nature Is Also Severe And, To Put It That Way, Hard, But Never Deceives And Always Helps You To Move Forward.

When I Have A Model Who Is Quiet And Steady And With Whom I Am Acquainted, Then I Draw Repeatedly 'til There Is One Drawing That Is Different From The Rest, Which Does Not Look Like An Ordinary Study, But More Typical And With More Feeling.

It Is Difficult To Know Oneself, But It Isn't Easy To Paint Oneself Either.

One Can Never Study Nature Too Much And Too Hard

I Am Astonished At The High Prices Paid For Works By Painters Who Are Dead, Prices None Of Them Could Expect When They Were Alive. It Is A Kind Of Tulip Trade, In Which Living Painters Suffer But Do Not Profit.

If Your Inner Voice Is Telling You That You Can't Paint, By All Means, Hurry Up And Paint And Silence The Voice.

Still, There Is A Calm, Pure Harmony, And Music Inside Of Me.

I Am An Artist... It's Self-evident That What That Word Implies Is Looking For Something All The Time Without Ever Finding It In Full. It Is The Opposite Of Saying, 'i Know All About It. I've Already Found It.' As Far As I'm Concerned, The Word Means, 'i Am Looking. I Am Hunting For It. I Am Deeply Involved.'

I See Drawings And Pictures In The Poorest Huts, In The Dirtiest Corner. And My Mind Is Drawn Toward These Things By An Irresistible Force.

How Rich Art Is, If One Can Only Remember What One Has Seen, One Is Never Empty Of Thoughts Or Truly Lonely, Never Alone.

Painters Understand Nature And Love It, And Teach Us To See.

The Only Time I Feel Alive Is When I'm Painting.

An Artist Need Not Be A Minister Or A Collector In Church, But He Must Have A Warm Heart For People, And I Find It A Noble Thing That, For Example, No Winter Passed Without The Graphic Doing Something To Keep Alive Sympathy For The Poor.

Someday Death Will Take Us To Another Star.

I Am Not Strictly Speaking Mad, For My Mind Is Absolutely Normal In The Intervals, And Even More So Than Before. But During The Attacks It Is Terrible - And Then I Lose Consciousness Of Everything. But That Spurs Me On To Work And To Seriousness, As A Miner Who Is Always In Danger Makes Haste In What He Does.

Suffice It To Say That Black And White Are Also Colors... For Their Simultaneous Contrast Is As Striking As That Of Green And Red, For Instance.

Black And White

The Only Thing To Do Is To Go One's Own Way, To Try One's Best, To Make The Thing Live.

We Are Having Wind And Rain Here, And I Am Very Glad Not To Be Alone. I Work From Memory On Bad Days, And That Would Not Do If I Were Alone.

In Trees, I See Expression And Soul

You Have First To Experience What You Want To Express.

But On The Road That I'm On I Must Continue; If I Do Nothing, If I Don't Study, If I Don't Keep On Trying, Then I'm Lost, Then Woe Betide Me. That's How I See This, To Keep On, Keep On, That's What's Needed.

As We Advance In Life It Becomes More And More Difficult, But In Fighting The Difficulties The Inmost Strength Of The Heart Is Developed.

Great Things Are Not Something Accidental, But Must Certainly Be Willed.

If You Work Diligently... Without Saying To Yourself Beforehand, 'i Want To Make This Or That,' If You Work As Though You Were Making A Pair Of Shoes, Without Artistic Preoccupation, You Will Not Always Find You Do Well. But The Days You Least Expect It, You Will Find A Subject Which Holds Its Own With The Work Of Those Who Have Gone Before.

That I Was Not Suited To Commerce Or Academic Study In No Way Proves That I Should Also Be Unfit To Be A Painter.

If I Am Worth Anything Later, I Am Worth Something Now. For Wheat Is Wheat, Even If People Think It Is A Grass In The Beginning.

If One Truly Loves Nature One Finds Beauty Everywhere.

I Hope I Shall Be Able To Make Some Drawings In Which There Is Something Human.

It Is Good To Love Many Things

Don't Lose Heart If It's Very Difficult At Times, Everything Will Come Out All Right And Nobody Can In The Beginning Do As He Wishes.

The Worse I Get Along With People The More I Learn To Have Faith In Nature And Concentrate On Her.

I Was Certainly Going The Right Way For A Stroke When I Left Paris. I Paid For It Nicely Afterwards! When I Stopped Drinking, When I Stopped Smoking So Much, When I Began To Think Again Instead Of Trying Not To Think - Good Lord, The Depression And The Prostration Of It! Work In These Magnificent Natural Surroundings (arles) Has Restored My Morale, But Even Now Some Efforts Are Too Much For Me: My Strength Fails Me.

There Is But One Paris And However Hard Living May Be Here, And If It Became Worse And Harder Even—the French Air Clears Up The Brain And Does Good—a World Of Good.

I Am Seeking, I Am Striving, I Am In It With All My Heart.

It May Be True That There Is No God Here, But There Must Be One Not Far Off, And At Such A Moment One Feels His Presence; Which Comes To The Same As Saying (and I Readily Give This Sincere Profession Of Faith): I Believe In God, And That It Is His Wi

If I Did Not Succeed I Still Thought That What I Had Worked On Would Be Continued. Not Immediately. But There Are Others Who Believe In Things That Are True.

How Right It Is To Love Flowers And The Greenery Of Pines And Ivy And Hawthorn Hedges; They Have Been With Us From The Very Beginning.

To Try To Understand The Real Significance Of What The Great Artists, The Serious Masters, Tell Us In Their Masterpieces, That Leads To God; One Man Wrote Or Told It In A Book; Another, In A Picture.

In An Artist's Life, Death Is Perhaps Not The Most Difficult Thing.

Paintings Have A Life Of Their Own That Derives From The Painter's Soul.

And In A Picture I Want To Say Something Comforting, As Music Is Comforting.

Art Is But Imitation Of Nature.

You Will Say That Everyone Has Seen Landscapes And Figures From Childhood On. The Question Is: Has Everybody Also Been Reflexive As A Child? Has Everybody Who Has Seen Them Also Loved Heath, Fields, Meadows, Woods, And The Snow And The Rain And The S.

A Likeness Different From The Products Of The God-fearing Photographer.

Rembrandt Is So Deeply Mysterious That He Says Things For Which There Are No Words In Any Language.

The Great Things Are Not Done By Impulse, But By A Series Of Small Things Brought Together. And Great Things Are Not Something Accidental, But Must Certainly Be Willed.

It's As Interesting And As Difficult To Say A Thing Well As To Paint It. There Is The Art Of Lines And Colours, But The Art Of Words Exists Too, And Will Never Be Less Important.

I Will Not Live Without Love.

Painting It Was Hard Graft... In Addition Red, Yellow, Brown Ochre, Black, Terra Sienna, Bistre, And The Result Is A Red-brown That Varies From Bistre To Deep Wine-red And To Pale, Blond Reddish.

In The End We Shall Have Had Enough Of Cynicism, Skepticism And Humbug, And We Shall Want To Live More Musically.

Close Friends Are Truly Life's Treasures. Sometimes They Know Us Better Than We Know Ourselves. With Gentle Honesty, They Are There To Guide And Support Us, To Share Our Laughter And Our Tears. Their Presence Reminds Us That We Are Never Really Alone.

If One Were To Say But Few Words, Though Ones With Meaning, One Would Do Better Than To Say Many That Were Only Empty Sounds, And Just As Easy To Utter As They Were Of Little Use.

The Emotions Are Sometimes So Strong That I Work Without Knowing It. The Strokes Come Like Speech.

There Are Colors Which Cause Each Other To Shine Brilliantly, Which Form A Couple Which Complete Each Other Like Man And Woman.

... Life Is Too Short To Do The Whole.

Life Is Too Short

In General, And Most Especially With Artists, I Pay As Much Attention To The Man Who Does The Work, As To The Work Itself.

To Die For The Sake Of Dying - I Prefer To Die Of Passion Than To Die Of Boredom!

We Have Very Beautiful Bad Weather Here At Present - Rain, Wind, Thunder - But With Splendid Effects; That's Why I Like It.

Love Is Eternal -- The Aspect May Change, But Not The Essence. There Is The Same Difference In A Person Before And After He Is In Love As There Is In An Unlighted Lamp And One That Is Burning. The Lamp Was There And Was A Good Lamp, But Now It Is Shedding Light Too, And That Is Its Real Function. And Love Makes One Calmer About Many Things, And That Way, One Is More Fit For One's Work.

I Must Continue To Follow The Path I Take Now. If I Do Nothing, If I Study Nothing, If I Cease Searching, Then, Woe Is Me, I Am Lost. That Is How I Look At It - Keep Going, Keep Going Come What May.

I Take Great Care Of Myself By Carefully Shutting Myself Away.

But After All I Find In My Work An Echo Of What Struck Me. I See That Nature Has Told Me Something, Has Spoken To Me, And That I Have Put It Down In Shorthand. In My Shorthand There May Be Words That Cannot Be Deciphered. There May Be Mistakes Or Gap

I Want To Get To The Point Where People Say Of My Work, That Man Feels Deeply.

I Assure You That There's A Lot Involved In Compositions With Figures. ... It's Like Weaving... You Must Control And Keep An Eye On Several Things At Once.

I Feel The Need Of Relations And Friendship, Of Affection, Of Friendly Intercourse.... I Cannot Miss These Things Without Feeling, As Does Any Other Intelligent Man, A Void And A Deep Need.

Art Is To Console Those Who Are Broken By Life.

I Always Think Photographs Abominable, And I Don't Like To Have Them Around, Particularly Not Those Of Persons I Know And Love. Those Photographic Portraits Wither Much Sooner Than We Ourselves Do, Whereas The Painted Portrait Is A Thing Which Is Felt, Done With Love.

One May Have A Blazing Hearth In One's Soul, And Yet No One Ever Comes To Sit By It.

Success Is Sometimes The Outcome Of A Whole String Of Failures.

Find Things Beautiful As Much As You Can, Most People Find Too Little Beautiful.

Even This Artistic Life, Which We Know Is Not Real Life, Appears To Me To Be So Alive And So Vital That It Would Be A Form Ingratitude Not To Be Content With It.

Whatever Plan One Makes, There Is A Hidden Difficulty Somewhere.

What Molting Time Is To Birds, So Adversity Or Misfortune Is ... For Us Humans.

I Am Unable To Describe Exactly What Is The Matter With Me; Now And Then There Are Horrible Fits Of Anxiety, Apparently Without Cause, Or Otherwise A Feeling Of Emptiness And Fatigue In The Head.

I Felt My Energy Return And That I Said To Myself, In Any Event I'll Recover From It, I'll Pick Up My Pencil That I Put Down In My Great Discouragement And I'll Get Back To Drawing, And From Then On, It Seems To Me, Everything Has Changed For Me.

But What's Your Ultimate Goal, You'll Say. That Goal Will Become Clearer, Will Take Shape Slowly And Surely, As The Croquis Becomes A Sketch And The Sketch A Painting, As One Works More Seriously, As One Digs Deeper Into The Originally Vague Idea, The First Fugitive, Passing Thought, Unless It Becomes Firm.

Ah! My Dear Friend Painting Is To Us What The Music Of Berlioz And Wagner Was Before Us - A Consolatory Art For Sore Hearts! And Yet There Are Only A Few Like You And Me Who Feel It!!!

And Love Makes One Calmer About Many Things, And In That Way, One Is More Fit For One's Work.

I've Just Kept On Ceaselessly Painting In Order To Learn Painting.

Love Always Causes Trouble, That's True, But In Its Favour, It Energizes.

To Save A Life Is A Real And Beautiful Thing. To Make A Home For The Homeless, Yes, It Is A Thing That Must Be Good; Whatever The World May Say, It Cannot Be Wrong.

There Is No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange.

The Sadness Will Last Forever.

Just Slap Something On It When You See A Blank Canvas Staring At You With A Sort Of Imbecility.

Christ Alone, Of All The Philosophers, Magicians, Etc., Has Affirmed Eternal Life As The Most Important Certainty, The Infinity Of Time, The Futility Of Death, The Necessity And Purpose Of Serenity And Devotion. He Lived Serenely, As An Artist Greater Than All Other Artists, Scorning Marble And Clay And Paint, Working In The Living Flesh. In Other Words, This Peerless Artist, Scarcely Conceivable With The Blunt Instrument Of Our Modern, Nervous And Obtuse Brains, Made Neither Statues Nor Paintings Nor Books. He Maintained In No Uncertain Terms That He Made ... Living Men, Immortals.

There Is A Sun, A Light That For Want Of Another Word I Can Only Call Yellow, Pale Sulphur Yellow, Pale Golden Citron. How Lovely Yellow Is!

For My Part I Know Nothing With Any Certainty, But The Sight Of The Stars Makes Me Dream.

Whoever Lives Sincerely And Encounters Much Trouble And Disappointment Without Being Bowed Down Is Worth More Than One Who Has Always Sailed Before The Wind And Has Only Known Prosperity.

I Myself Believe That There Is In Every Painter's Life A Period Of Making Absurdities. In My Case I Think That Period Is Already Long Past.

I Myself Am Quite Absorbed By The Delicate Yellow, Delicate Soft Green, Delicate Violet Of A Ploughed And Weeded Piece Of Soil.

Drawing Is The Root Of Everything, And The Time Spent On That Is Actually All Profit.

There Are So Many People, Especially Among Our Comrades, Who Imagine That Words Are Nothing - On The Contrary, Isn't It True That Saying A Thing Well Is As Interesting And As Difficult As Painting It?

I Want To Touch People With My Art. I Want Them To Say "he Feels Deeply, He Feels Tenderly".

One Begins By Plaguing Oneself To No Purpose In Order To Be True To Nature, And One Concludes By Working Quietly From One's Own Palette Alone, And Then Nature Is The Result.

One Of The Reasons Why I Have No Regular Job, And Why I Have Not Had A Regular Job For Years, Is Quite Simply That My Ideas Differ From Those Of The Gentlemen Who Hand Out The Jobs To Individuals Who Think As They Do. It Is Not Just A Question Of My Appearance, Which Is What They Have Sanctimoniously Reproached Me With. It Goes Deeper, I Do Assure You.

I Experience A Period Of Frightening Clarity In Those Moments When Nature Is So Beautiful. I Am No Longer Sure Of Myself, And The Paintings Appear As In A Dream.

It Seems To Me It's A Painter's Duty To Try To Put An Idea Into His Work.

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... 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.

I Wish They Would Take Me As I Am.

Take Me As I Am

Admire As Much As You Can. Most People Do Not Admire Enough.

My Opinion Is That The Best Thing Would Be To Work On Till Art Lovers Feel Drawn Toward It Of Their Own Accord, Instead Of Having To Praise Or To Explain It.

Spring Is The Fresh Green Of Young Corn And The Pink Blush Of Blossoms. Autumn Contrasts The Yellowed Foilage With Violet Hues. Winter Is The White Of Snow Against Its Black Forms ... Summer Is The Contrast Of Blues And The Golden Bronze Of The Corn.

There Is Nothing More Beautiful Than Nature Early In The Morning.

Poetry Surrounds Us Everywhere, But Putting It On Paper Is, Alas, Not So Easy As Looking At It.

I Believe More And More That God Must Not Be Judged On This Earth. It Is One Of His Sketches That Has Turned Out Badly.

There May Be A Time In Life When One Is Tired Of Everything And Feels As If All One Does Is Wrong, And There Maybe Some Truth In It- Do You Think This Is A Feeling One Must Try To Forget And To Banish, Or Is It 'the Longing For God,' Which One Must Not Fear, But Cherish To See If It May Bring Us Some Good? Is It 'the Longing For God' Which Leads Us To Make A Choice Which We Never Regret? Let Us Keep Courage And Try To Be Patient And Gentle. And Not Mind Being Eccentric, And Make Distinction Between Good And Evil.

Art, Although Produced By Man's Hands, Is Something Not Created By Hands Alone, But Something Which Wells Up From A Deeper Source Out Of Our Soul.....my Sympathies In The Literary As Well As In The Artistic Field Are Drawn Most Strongly To Those Artists In Whom I See Most The Working Of The Soul.

So Let Us Go Forward Quietly, Each On His Own Path, Forever Making For The Light.

The Lamps Are Burning And The Starry Sky Is Over It All.

That This Awareness Of My Own Fallibility Will Prevent Me From Making Many Mistakes Doesn't Alter The Fact That I'm Bound To Make A Great Many Mistakes Anyway. But If We Fall, We Get Up Again!

Conscience Is A Man's Compass.

What Is Drawing? How Does One Get There? It's Working One's Way Through An Invisible Iron Wall That Seems To Stand Between What One Feels And What One Can Do. How Can One Get Through That Wall? - Since Hammering On It Doesn't Help At All. In My View, One Must Undermine The Wall And Grind Through It Slowly And Patiently.

I Am Always In The Hope To Express The Love Of Two Lovers By A Marriage Of Two Complementary Colors - Colors Which Marry Each Other... Complement Each Other As A Man And A Woman Do.

By Working Hard, Old Man, I Hope To Make Something Good One Day. I Haven't Yet, But I Am Pursuing It And Fighting For It . . . .

The Thing Has Already Taken Form In My Mind Before I Start It. The First Attempts Are Absolutely Unbearable. I Say This Because I Want You To Know That If You See Something Worthwhile In What I Am Doing, It Is Not By Accident But Because Of Real Direction And Purpose.

Seek Only Light And Freedom And Do Not Immerse Yourself Too Deeply In The Worldly Mire.

It Always Strikes Me, And It Is Very Peculiar, That, Whenever We See The Image Of Indescribable And Unutterable Desolation—of Loneliness, Poverty, And Misery, The End And Extreme Of Things—the Thought Of God Comes Into One's Mind.

Though I Am Often In The Depths Of Misery, There Is Still Calmness, Pure Harmony And Music Inside Me. I See Paintings Or Drawings In The Poorest Cottages, In The Dirtiest Corners. And My Mind Is Driven Towards These Things With An Irresistible Momentum.

But I Always Think That The Best Way To Know God Is To Love Many Things.

Only When I Fall Do I Get Up Again.

Making Mistakes

Study, Analyse The Social Structure - That's Always Far More Effective Than Moralising.

Perhaps Someday Everyone Will Have Neurosis.

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.

It Is A Sad And Very Melancholy Scene, Which Must Strike Everyone Who Knows And Feels That We Also Have To Pass One Day Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death, And “que La Fin De La Vie Humaine, Ce Sont Des Larmes Ou Des Cheveux Blancs.” What Lies Beyond This Is A Great Mystery That Only God Knows, But He Has Revealed Absolutely Through His Word That There Is A Resurrection Of The Dead.

Shadow Of Death

For Instead Of Trying To Reproduce Exactly What I See Before Me, I Make More Arbitrary Use Of Colour To Express Myself More Forcefully.

...and Then, I Have Nature And Art And Poetry, And If That Is Not Enough, What Is Enough?

I'm Now Painting With All The Elan Of A Marseillais Eating Soup, Which Won't Surprise You When I Tell You I'm Painting Large Sunflowers. The Idea? To Decorate The Studio, Now There's Hope Of Gauguin Living Here. I Aim At A Dozen Panels Of Sunflowers In The Room I've Set Aside For Gauguin.

Seeing That I Am So Busily Occupied With Myself Just Now, I Want To Try To Paint My Self-portrait In Writing.

Art Is Jealous, And Demands Our Whole Strength ... .

Do Not Become The Slave Of Your Model.

I Long So Much To Make Beautiful Things. But Beautiful Things Require Effort And Disappointment And Perseverance.

I'll Start With Small Things.

It Was Richepin Who Said Somewhere, 'the Love Of Art Means Loss Of Real Love'... True, But On The Other Hand, Real Love Makes You Disgusted With Art.

When I Have A Terrible Need Of - Shall I Say The Word - Religion. Then I Go Out And Paint The Stars.

The More I Become Decomposed, The More Sick And Fragile I Am, The More I Become An Artist.

For Great Things Do Not Done Just Happen By Impulse But Are A Succession Of Small Things Linked Together.

We Spent Our Whole Lives In Unconsous Excercise Of The Art Of Expressing Our Thoughts With The Help Of Words

Your Profession Is Not What Brings Home Your Weekly Paycheck, Your Profession Is What You're Put Here On Earth To Do, With Such Passion And Such Intensity That It Becomes Spiritual In Calling.

Occasionally, In Times Of Worry, I've Longed To Be Stylish, But On Second Thought I Say No-just Let Me Be Myself-and Express Rough, Yet True Things With Rough Workmanship.

Second Thoughts

I Confess I Do Not Know Why, But Looking At The Stars Always Makes Me Dream.

It Astonishes Me Already When I Compare My Condition Today With What It Was A Month Ago. Before That I Knew Well Enough One Could Fracture One's Legs And Arms And Recover Afterward, But I Did Not Know That You Could Fracture The Brain In Your Head And Recover From That Too.

Love Always Brings Difficulties, That Is True, But The Good Side Of It Is That It Gives Energy.

What A Simple Thing Death Is, Just As Simple As The Falling Of An Autumn Leaf.

There Is Peace Even In The Storm

The Beginning Is Perhaps More Difficult Than Anything Else, But Keep Heart, It Will Turn Out All Right.

I Am Always Doing What I Can't Do Yet In Order To Learn How To Do It.

Painting Is Like Having A Bad Mistress Who Spends And Spends And It's Never Enough ... I Tell Myself That Even If A Tolerable Study Comes Out Of It From Time To Time, It Would Have Been Cheaper To Buy It From Somebody Else.

We Are Surrounded By Poetry On All Sides.

It Is Only Too True That A Lot Of Artists Are Mentally Ill - It's A Life Which, To Put It Mildly, Makes One An Outsider. I'm All Right When I Completely Immerse Myself In Work, But I'll Always Remain Half Crazy.

It Is Better To Be High-spirited Even Though One Makes More Mistakes, Than To Be Narrow-minded And All Too Prudent.

Ah, Manet Has Come Very, Very Close To It And Courbet - The Marrying Of Form And Colour.

Love Is Something Eternal.

Someone Has A Great Fire In His Soul And Nobody Ever Comes To Warm Themselves At It, And Passers-by See Nothing But A Little Smoke At The Top Of The Chimney And Then Go On Their Way.

And When I Read, And Really I Do Not Read So Much, Only A Few Authors, - A Few Men That I Discovered By Accident - I Do This Because They Look At Things In A Broader, Milder And More Affectionate Way Than I Do, And Because They Know Life Better, So That I Can Learn From Them.

If We Study Japanese Art, We See A Man Who Is Undoubtedly Wise, Philosophic And Intelligent, Who Spends His Time Doing What? He Studies A Single Blade Of Grass.

The Laws Of The Colors Are Unutterably Beautiful, Just Because They Are Not Accidental.

At Times It Is Not Easy For Me To Take Up Living Again.

As Practice Makes Perfect, I Cannot But Make Progress; Each Drawing One Makes, Each Study One Paints, Is A Step Forward.

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.

Life Is Not Long For Anybody, And The Problem Is Only To Make Something Of It.

What Lives In Art And Is Eternally Living, Is First Of All The Painter And Then The Painting.

I Do Not Know Myself How I Paint It. I Sit Down With A White Board Before The Spot That Strikes Me. I Look At What Is Before My Eyes, And Say To Myself, That White Board Must Become Something.

Ah! Portraiture, Portraiture With The Thought, The Soul Of The Model In It, That Is What I Think Must Come.

I Work Even In The Middle Of The Day, In The Full Sunshine, And I Enjoy It Like A Cicada.

If One Hasn't A Horse, One Is One's Own Horse.

If One Feels The Need Of Something Grand, Something Infinite, Something That Makes One Feel Aware Of God, One Need Not Go Far To Find It. I Think That I See Something Deeper, More Infinite, More Eternal Than The Ocean In The Expression Of The Eyes Of A Little Baby When It Wakes In The Morning And Coos Or Laughs Because It Sees The Sun Shining On Its Cradle.

I Cannot Help Thinking That The Best Way Of Knowing God Is To Love Many Things. Love This Friend, This Person, This Thing, Whatever You Like, And You Will Be On The Right Road To Understanding Him Better.

I Want To Paint What I Feel, And Feel What I Paint.

There Was A Sentence In Your Letter That Struck Me, “i Wish I Were Far Away From Everything, I Am The Cause Of All, And Bring Only Sorrow To Everybody, I Alone Have Brought All This Misery On Myself And Others.” These Words Struck Me Because That Same Feeling, Just The Same, Not More Nor Less, Is Also On My Conscience.

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.

If One Has Such An Encounter It Is To Be Expected It Will Bring Him Into Conflict, Especially Conflict With Himself, Because One Sometimes Literally Does Not Know What To Do Or What Not To Do. But Is This Struggle And Even The Mistakes One May Make, Not Better, And Do They Not Develop Us More Than If We Keep Systematically Away From Emotions?

I Am Painting With The Same Enthusiasm As A Marseillaise Eats Bouillabaisse ... I Am Painting Big Sunflowers.

I Devour Nature Ceaselessly. I Exaggerate, Sometimes I Make Changes In The Subject; But Still I Don't Invent The Whole Picture. On The Contrary, I Find It Already There. It's A Question Of Picking Out What One Wants From Nature.

My Great Longing Is To Make Those Very Incorrectnesses, Those Deviations, Remodellings, Changes In Reality, So That They May Become, Yes, Lies If You Like - But Truer Than The Literal Truth.

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Edgar Lee Masters

Robert Falcon Scott

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