Background Image

...

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.

-Vincent Van Gogh

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

If You Work Diligently...

Vincent Van Gogh

...

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.

Views: 10

Topic

More From Vincent Van Gogh

It Is Looking At Things For A Long Time That Ripens You And Gives You A Deeper Meaning.

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.

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!!!

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

The Sadness Will Last Forever.

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.

Conscience Is A Man's Compass, And Though The Needle Sometimes Deviates, Though One Often Perceives Irregularities In Directing One's Course By It, Still One Must Try To Follow Its Direction.

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.

Art Is But Imitation Of Nature.

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

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.

No, No Thought To The Winnings. One Loves Because One Loves.

Since Visiting The Abatoirs Of S. France I Have Stopped Eating Meat.

It's Better To Have A Gay Life Of It Than To Commit Suicide.

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

Art Demands Constant Observation.

If You Study Japanese Art You See A Man Who Is Undoubtedly Wise, Philosophic And Intelligent, Who Spends His Time How? In Studying The Distance Between The Earth And The Moon? No. In Studying The Policy Of Bismarck? No. He Studies A Single Blade Of Grass. But This Blade Of Grass Leads Him To Draw Every Plant And Then The Seasons, The Wide Aspects Of The Countryside, Then Animals, Then The Human Figure. So He Passes His Life, And Life Is Too Short To Do The Whole.

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.

Life Itself, Too, Is Forever Turning An Infinitely Vacant, Dispiriting Blank Side Towards Man On Which Nothing Appears, Any More Than It Does On A Blank Canvas. But No Matter How Vacant And Vain, How Dead Life May Appear To Be, The Man Of Faith, Of Energy, Of Warmth, Who Knows Something, Will Not Be Put Off So Easily.

Even The Knowledge Of My Own Fallibility Cannot Keep Me From Making Mistakes. Only When I Fall Do I Get Up Again.

I Would Like To Leave This World And Never Return. I Severed My Ear, But How I Wish That I Had Severed My Heart. I Shall Never Amount To Anything.

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.

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.

A Weaver Who Has To Direct And To Interweave A Great Many Little Threads Has No Time To Philosophize About It, But Rather He Is So Absorbed In His Work That He Doesn't Think But Acts, And He Feels How Things Must Go More Than He Can Explain It.

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.

I Never Get Tired Of The Blue Sky.

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

Many People Seem To Think It Foolish, Even Superstitious, To Believe That The World Could Still Change For The Better. And It Is True That In Winter It Is Sometimes So Bitingly Cold That One Is Tempted To Say, 'what Do I Care If There Is A Summer; Its Warmth Is No Help To Me Now.' Yes, Evil Often Seems To Surpass Good. But Then, In Spite Of Us, And Without Our Permission, There Comes At Last An End To The Bitter Frosts. One Morning The Wind Turns, And There Is A Thaw. And So I Must Still Have Hope.

Oh! I Must Somehow Manage To Do A Figure In A Few Strokes.

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

Be Clearly Aware Of The Stars And Infinity On High. Then Life Seems Almost Enchanted After All.

At One Time, The Earth Was Supposed To Be Flat. Well, So It Is, Even Today, From Paris To Asnieres. But That Fact Doesn't Prevent Science From Proving That The Earth As A Whole Is Spherical. No One Nowadays Denies It. Well...we Are Still At The Stage Of Believing That Life Itself Is Flat, The Distance From Birth To Death. Yet The Probability Is That Life, Too, Is Spherical And Much More Extensive And Capacious Than The Hemisphere We Know.

Art Is To Console Those Who Are Broken By Life.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Great Isn't Something Accidental; It Must Be Willed.

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

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.

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

Art Demands Persistent Work, Work In Spite Of Everything, And Continuous Observations. By Persistent, I Mean Not Only Continuous Work, But Also Not Giving Up Your Opinion At The Bidding Of Such And Such A Person.

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.

I Have Played Hell Somewhat With The Truthfulness Of The Colours.

In Spite Of Everything I Shall Rise Again: I Will Take Up My Pencil, Which I Have Forsaken In My Great Discouragement, And I Will Go On With My Drawing.

Here Everything Is So Wholly What I Consider Beautiful. In Other Words, There Is Peace Here.

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

As Long As Autumn Lasts, I Shall Not Have Hands, Canvas And Colors Enough To Paint The Beautiful Things I See.

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

If I Succeed In Putting Some Warmth And Love Into The Work, Then It Will Find Friends. Carrying On Working Is The

I Am A Man Of Passions, Capable Of And Subject To Doing More Or Less Foolish Things- Which I Happen To Regret, More Or Less, Afterwards.

Try To Walk As Much As You Can, And Keep Your Love For Nature, For That Is The True Way To Learn To Understand Art More And More. Painters Understand Nature And Love Her And Teach Us To See Her. If One Really Loves Nature, One Can Find Beauty Everywhere.

Beauty Everywhere

To Express The Love Of Two Lovers By A Marriage Of Two Complementary Colors, Their Mingling And Their Opposition, The Mysterious Vibrations Of Kindred Tones. To Express The Thought Of A Brow By The Radiance Of Light Tone Against A Somber Background; To Express Hope By Some Star, The Eagerness Of A Soul By A Sunset Radiance.

The Sunflower Is Mine, In A Way.

We Must Not Judge God From This World. It's Just A Study That Didn't Come Off. It's Only A Master Who Could Make Such A Blunder.

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

Those Dutchmen Had Hardly Any Imagination Or Fantasy, But Their Good Taste And Their Scientific Knowledge Of Composition Were Enormous.

When We Are Working At A Difficult Task And Strive After A Good Thing, We Are Fighting A Righteous Battle, The Direct Reward Of Which Is That We Are Kept From Much Evil. As We Advance In Life It Becomes More And More Difficult, But In Fighting The Difficulties The Inmost Strength Of The Heart Is Developed.

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

If One Truly Loves Nature One Finds Beauty Everywhere.

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

One Can Never Study Nature Too Much And Too Hard

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

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.

The Cure For Him Would Be To Take A Good Long Look At Some Potato Plants, Which Have Lately Had Such A Deep And Distinctive Colour And Tone, Instead Of Driving Himself Mad Looking At Pieces Of Yellow Satin And Gold Leather.

What Is Done In Love Is Done Well.

Drawing Is The Root Of Everything.

One Of The Hardest Things To Do Is To Paint Darkness Which Nonetheless Has Light In It.

I Put My Heart And My Soul Into My Work, And Have Lost My Mind In The Process.

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.

I Am Still Far From Being What I Want To Be, But With God's Help I Shall Succeed.

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

Painting As It Is Now Promises To Become More Subtle - More Like Music And Less Like Sculpture - And Above All It Promises Color. If Only It Keeps This Promise.

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

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

All Art Is A Gift. It Is First Of All A Gift That The Maker Can Do It. It Is Then A Gift To Someone Else, Whether They Pay For It Or Not. The Wonder Of It Is That We Cannot Get The Production Of These Gifts Stopped. Art Is Life Seeking Itself. It Is Our Intractable Expressions Of Love For The Beauties, Ideas And Epiphanies We Regularly Find. I Framed The Painting. It's Now Hanging In Our Den. "i Have Walked This Earth For 30 Years, And, Out Of Gratitude, Want To Leave Some Souvenir.

One Must Learn To Read, Just As One Must Learn To See And Learn To Live.

I Wanted To Make People Think Of A Totally Different Way Of Living From That Which We, Educated People, Live. I Would Absolutely Not Want Anyone To Find It Beautiful Or Good Without A Thought.

Fortunately For Me, I Know Well Enough What I Want, And Am Basically Utterly Indifferent To The Criticism That I Work To Hurriedly. In Answer To That, I Have Done Some Things Even More Hurriedly Theses Last Few Days.

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.

We Are Surrounded By Poetry On All Sides.

I Feel Such A Creative Force In Me: I Am Convinced That There Will Be A Time When, Let Us Say, I Will Make Something Good Every Day , On A Regular Basis....i Am Doing My Very Best To Make Every Effort Because I Am Longing So Much To Make Beautiful Things. But Beautiful Things Mean Painstaking Work, Disappointment, And Perseverance.

My Aim In Life Is To Make Pictures And Drawings, As Many And As Well As I Can; Then, At The End Of My Life... Looking Back With Love And Tender Regret, And Thinking, 'oh, The Pictures I Might Have Made!'

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

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.

The Painter Of The Future Will Be A Colorist Unlike Anything Yet.

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.

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

Let’s Not Forget That The Little Emotions Are The Great Captains Of Our Lives And We Obey Them Without Realizing It.

I Believe I Do Much Better For The Time Being By First Copying Some Good Things Than By Working Without That Foundation

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

I Feel A Certain Calm. There Is Safety In The Midst Of Danger. What Would Life Be If We Had No Courage To Attempt Anything?

Let Us Keep Courage And Try To Be Patient And Gentle. And Let Us Not Mind Being Eccentric, And Make Distinction Between Good And Evil.

The World Concerns Me Only In So Far As I Have A Certain Debt And Duty To It, Because I Have Lived In It For Thirty Years And Owe To It To Leave Behind Some Souvenir In The Shape Of Drawings And Paintings – Not Done To Please Any Particular Movement, But Within Which A Genuine Human Sentiment Is Expressed.

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.

To Suffer Without Complaint Is The Only Lesson We Have To Learn In This Life

Well, I Am Ploughing On My Canvases As They Do On Their Fields (the Peasants). It Goes Badly Enough In Our Profession - In Fact That Has Always Been So, But At The Moment It Is Very Bad.

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.

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

No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange, And If You Do Blue, Then Do Yellow And Orange As Well, Surely.

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?

Just Slap Anything On When You See A Blank Canvas Staring You In The Face Like Some Imbecile. You Don't Know How Paralyzing That Is, That Stare Of A Blank Canvas Is, Which Says To The Painter, ‘you Can't Do A Thing’. The Canvas Has An Idiotic Stare And Mesmerizes Some Painters So Much That They Turn Into Idiots Themselves. Many Painters Are Afraid In Front Of The Blank Canvas, But The Blank Canvas Is Afraid Of The Real, Passionate Painter Who Dares And Who Has Broken The Spell Of `you Can't' Once And For All.

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?

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.

Exaggerate The Essential, Leave The Obvious Vague.

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

I Can't Change The Fact That My Paintings Don't Sell. But The Time Will Come When People Will Recognize That They Are Worth More Than The Value Of The Paints Used In The Picture.

I Often Think That The Night Is More Alive And More Richly Colored Than The Day.

The World Concerns Me Only In So Far As I Feel A Certain Indebtedness And Duty Toward It Because I Have Walked This Earth For Thirty Years, And, Out Of Gratitude, Want To Leave Some Souvenir In The Shape Of Drawings Or Pictures — Not Made To Please A Certain Taste In Art, But To Express A Sincere Human Feeling.

Both She And I Have Grief Enough And Trouble Enough, But As For Regrets – Neither Of Us Have Any.

Love Is Eternal, The Aspect May Change, But Not The Essence.  

Wedding Anniversary

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 You Hear A Voice Within You Say 'you Cannot Paint,' Then By All Means Paint, And That Voice Will Be Silenced.

An Artist Needn't Be A Clergyman Or A Churchwarden, But He Certainly Must Have A Warm Heart For His Fellow Men.

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!

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

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

I Can't Work Without A Model. I Won't Say I Turn My Back On Nature Ruthlessly In Order To Turn A Study Into A Picture, Arranging The Colors, Enlarging And Simplifying; But In The Matter Of Form I Am Too Afraid Of Departing From The Possible And The True.

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

To Express A Marriage Of Two Complementary Colors, Their Mingling And Their Opposition, The Mysterious Vibrations Of Kindred Tones.

To Stick To The Present And Not Let It Pass Without Drawing Some Profit From It, That's What I Think Duty Is. ...let Us Perservere As Far As We Can Rather Today Than Tomorrow.

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

I Sometimes Think There Is Nothing So Delightful As Drawing.

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.

Sometimes I Long So Much To Do Landscape, Just As One Would Go For A Long Walk To Refresh Oneself, And In All Of Nature, In Trees For Instance, I See Expression And A Soul.

Modern Reality Has Got Such A Hold On Us That... When We Attempt To Reconstruct The Ancient Days In Our Thoughts...the Minor Events Of Our Lives Tear Us Away From Our Meditations, And... Thrust Us Back Into Our Personal [problems]

In A Sense I'm Glad That I've Never Learned How To Paint.

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

Painting Is A Faith And That It Brings With It The Duty To Pay No Heed To Public Opinion - And That In It One Conquers By Perseverance And Not By Giving In.

If Only We Try To Live Sincerely, It Will Go Well With Us, Even Though We Are Certain To Experience Real Sorrow, And Great Disappointments, And Also Will Probably Commit Great Faults And Do Wrong Things, But It Certainly Is True, Thatit Is Better To Be High-spirited, Even Though One Makes More Mistakes, Than To Be Narrow-minded And All Too Prudent. It Is Good To 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 Well Done.

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.

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.

What Color Is In A Picture, Enthusiasm Is In Life.

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.

Christ Is More Of An Artist Than The Artists; He Works In The Living Spirit And The Living Flesh, He Makes Men Instead Of Statues.

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.

I Don't Know If I Can Convey The Postman As I Feel Him... Unfortunately He Cannot Pose, And A Painting Demands An Intelligent Model.

Normality Is A Paved Road: It’s Comfortable To Walk, But No Flowers Grow On It.

There Certainly Is An Affinity Between A Person And His Work, But It Is Not Easy To Define What This Affinity Is, And On That Question Many Judge Quite Wrongly.

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.

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.

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.

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

How Lovely Yellow Is! It Stands For The Sun.

It Must Be A Good Thing To Die Conscious Of Having Performed Some Real Good, And To Know That By This Work One Will Live, At Least In The Memory Of Some, And Will Have Left A Good Example To Those That Come After. A Work That Is Good-it May Not Be Eternal, But The Thought Expressed In It Is, And The Work Itself Will Certainly Remain In Existence For A Long, Long Time; And If Afterwards Others Arise, They Can Do No Better Than Follow In The Footsteps Of Such Predecessors And Do Their Work In The Same Way.

If Boyhood And Youth Are But Vanity, Must It Not Be Our Ambition To Become Men?

If The Storm Within Gets Too Loud, I Take A Glass Too Much To Stun Myself.

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.

In Trees, I See Expression And Soul

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

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

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.

Love A Friend, Love A Wife, Something, Whatever You Like, But One Must Love With A Lofty And Serious Intimate Sympathy, With Strength, With Intelligence, And One Must Always Try To Know Deeper, Better, And More.

The Large Majority Of People Are Asleep And Do Not Wish To Wake Up.

As A Painter I Shall Never Signify Anything Of Importance. I Feel It Absolutely.

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.

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

God Sends Us Pieces Of Art So That We May See Ourselves In Them

The Great Artist Is The Simplifier.

...to Look At The Stars Always Makes Me Dream, As Simply As I Dream Over The Black Dots Of A Map Representing Towns And Villages. Why, I Ask Myself, Should The Shining Dots Of The Sky Not Be As Accessible As The Black Dots On The Map Of France?

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.

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

Do Not Become The Slave Of Your Model.

There Is No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange.

I Consciously Choose The Dog's Path Through Life. I Shall Be Poor; I Shall Be A Painter.

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

My Sketchbook Is A Witness Of What I Am Experiencing, Scribbling Things Whenever They Happen.

One Must Spoil As Many Canvases As One Succeeds With.

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 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.

Nature Always Begins By Resisting The Artist, But He Who Really Takes It Seriously Does Not Allow That Resistance To Put Him Off His Stride; On The Contrary, It Is That Much More Of A Stimulus To Fight For Victory.

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.

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

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

There Is No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange, And If You Put In Blue, Then You Must Put In Yellow, And Orange Too, Mustn't You? Oh Well, You Will Tell Me That What I Write To You Are Only Banalities.

I Often Think Of You All, One Cannot Do What One Wants In Life. The More You Feel Attached To A Spot, The More Ruthlessly You Are Compelled To Leave It, But The Memories Remain, And One Remembers - As In A Looking Glass, Darkly - One's Absent Friends.

What Has Changed Is That My Life Then Was Less Difficult And My Future Seemingly Less Gloomy, But As Far As My Inner Self, My Way Of Looking At Things And Of Thinking Is Concerned, That Has Not Changed. But If There Has Indeed Been A Change, Then It Is That I Think, Believe And Love More Seriously Now What I Thought, Believed And Loved Even Then.

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.

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

What Would Life Be If We Had No Courage To Attempt Anything?

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

Painting Demands An Intelligent Model.

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

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.

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

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 Victory One Would Gain After A Whole Life Of Work And Effort Is Better Than One That Is Gained Sooner.

To Know Life, One Must Love Many Things.

The Majority Of (painters), Because They Aren't Colorists, Do Not See Yellow, Orange Or Sulphur In The South (of France) And They Call A Painter Mad If He Sees With Eyes Other Than Theirs

To The One Party, Woman Is Always Heresy And Diabolical. To Me, The Opposite.

One Must Work And Dare If One Really Wants To Live.

The Wheat Field Has ...poetry; It Is Like A Memory Of Something One Has Once Seen. We Can Only Make Our Pictures Speak.

Do Not Think Too Deeply About These Things - Gradually They Will Become Clearer To You

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.

L Can Do Very Well Without God Both In My Life And In My Painting, But L Cannot, Ill As I Am, Do Without Something Which Is Greater Than L, Which Is My Life — The Power To Create.

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

But You People Do Not Understand Me, And I Am Afraid You Never Will.

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

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

You Have First To Experience What You Want To Express.

Trending Author

Maurice Maeterlinck

Robert Anderson

Kenneth Rexroth

Category