Background Image

...

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.

-Vincent Van Gogh

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The World Concerns Me

Vincent Van Gogh

...

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.

Views: 4

Topic

More From Vincent Van Gogh

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 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 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.

Van Gogh Was So Under Appreciated In His Time, He Sold Only One Of His 900 Paintings While Alive. Posthumously, He Became One Of The Most Famous Artists Of All Time And His Work Is Now Considered Priceless. Oh The Irony.

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.

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.

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!!!

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.

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

The More You Love, The More You Suffer.

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.

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

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

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?

I Never Get Tired Of The Blue Sky.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Just Dash Something Down If You See A Blank Canvas Staring At You With A Certain Imbecility. You Do Not Know How Paralyzing It Is, That Staring Of A Blank Canvas Which Says To The Painter: You Don't Know Anything.

...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?

Love Is Something Eternal.

But I Must Work On In Full Calmness And Serenity... The World Concerns Me Only In So Far As I Feel A Certain Debt And Duty Towards It, Because I Have Walked On The 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 Tendency In Art, But To Express A Sincere Human Feeling. So This Work Is The Aim-and Through Concentration Upon That One Idea, Everything One Does Is Simplified. Now The Work Goes Slowly-a Reason The More To Lose No Time.

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

For Myself, I Declare I Don't Know Anything About It. But The Sight Of The Stars Always Makes Me Dream.

For Me Work Is An Absolute Necessity, Indeed I Can't Really Drag It Out, I Take No More Pleasure In Anything Than In Work, That's To Say, Pleasure In Other Things Stops Immediately And I Become Melancholy If I Can't Get On With The Work.

Only When I Fall Do I Get Up Again.

Making Mistakes

In Trees, I See Expression And Soul

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.

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.

We Are Surrounded By Poetry On All Sides.

I've Never Felt A Desire (and I Don't Believe I Ever Shall) To Bring The Public To My Work... A Certain Popularity Seems To Me The Least Desirable Of Things.

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

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

Selfless Service

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

I Work As Diligently On My Canvases As The Laborers Do In Their Fields.

It Is True That Every Day Has Its Own Evil, And Its Good Too. But How Difficult Must Life Be, Especially Farther On When The Evil Of Each Day Increases As Far As Worldly Things Go, If It Is Not Strengthened And Comforted By Faith. And In Christ All Worldly Things May Become Better, And, As It Were, Sanctified. Theo, Woe Is Me If I Do Not Preach The Gospel; If I Did Not Aim At That And Possess Faith And Hope In Christ, It Would Be Bad For Me Indeed, But No I Have Some Courage.

It Is A Pity That, As One Gradually Gains Experience, One Loses One's Youth.

Doing Little Things Well Is A Step Toward Doing Big Things Better.

I Sometimes Think There Is Nothing So Delightful As Drawing.

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.

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

I Dream Of Painting And Then I Paint My Dream.

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.

But For One's Health As You Say, It Is Very Necessary To Work In The Garden And See The Flowers Growing.

Flowers Growing

In My View, I Am Often Immensely Rich, Not In Money, But (although Just Now Perhaps Not All The Time) Rich Because I Have Found My Metier, Something I Can Devote Myself To Heart And Soul And That Gives Inspiration And Meaning To My Life.

It Is Good To Love Many Things

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 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 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.

I Am No Friend Of Present-day Christianity, Though Its Founder Was Sublime.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It Is The Painting That Makes Me So Happy These Days.

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.

To Exaggerate The Fairness Of Hair, I Come Even To Orange Tones, Chromes And Pale Yellow ... I Make A Plain Background Of The Richest, Intensest Blue That I Can Contrive, And By This Simple Combination Of The Bright Head Against The Rich Blue Background, I Get A Mysterious Effect, Like A Star In The Depths Of An Azure Sky.

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

I Don't Know Anything With Certainty, But Seeing The Stars Makes Me Dream.

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

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

If You End Up Falling In Love With Someone, It's Because Of Them. If You End Up Hating Someone, It's Because Of You.

Falling In Love

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

Art Demands Constant Observation.

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

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.

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

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.

Ideas For Work Are Coming To Me In Abundance...i'm Going Like A Painting-locomotive.

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.

Yellow Is Capable Of Charming God.

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?

I Wish They Would Take Me As I Am.

Take Me As I Am

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.

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.

Many Painters Are Afraid Of The Blank Canvas, But The Blank Canvas Is Afraid Of The Truly Passionate Painter Who Dares-and Who Has Once Broken The Spell Of 'you Can't.'

Everyone Who Works With Love And With Intelligence Finds In The Very Sincerity Of His Love For Nature And Art A Kind Of Armor Against The Opinions Of Other People.

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.

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

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.

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.

To Believe In God For Me Is To Feel That There Is A God, Not A Dead One, Or A Stuffed One, Who With Irresistible Force Urges Us Towards More Loving.

It Is The Language Of Nature To Which One Has To Listen.

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

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.

The Cypresses Are Always Occupying My Thoughts.

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

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 Is Done In Love Is Done Well.

Often Whole Days Pass Without My Speaking To Anyone, Except To Ask For Diner Or Coffee. And It Has Been Like That Form The Beginning.

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

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

I Am A Fanatic! I Feel A Power Within Me...a Fire That I May Not Quench, But Must Keep Ablaze.

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.

I Want To Paint Men And Women With That Something Of The External Which The Halo Used To Symbolize, And Which We Now Seek To Give By The Actual Radiance And Vibrancy Of Our Colorings.

There Is Peace Even In The Storm

Color In A Picture Is Like Enthusiasm In Life.

Enthusiasm For Life

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

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.

How Lovely Yellow Is! It Stands For The Sun.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The Diseases That We Civilized People Labor Under Most Are Melancholy And Pessimism.

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

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.

Everywhere We Look, Complex Magic Of Nature Blazes Before Our Eyes.

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

The Uglier, Older, Meaner, Iller, Poorer I Get, The More I Wish To Take My Revenge By Doing Brilliant Color, Well Arranged, Resplendent.

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.

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

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 . . . .

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

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

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

The Fishermen Know That The Sea Is Dangerous And The Storm Terrible, But They Have Never Found These Dangers Sufficient Reason For Remaining Ashore.

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

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.

Describing Starry Night: Firmament And Planets Both Disappeared, But The Mighty Breath Which Gives Life To All Things And In Which All Is Bound Up Remained.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

And Painted Portraits Have A Life Of Their Own That Comes From Deep In The Soul Of The Painter And Where The Machine Can't Go.

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.

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.

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.

Gauguin Says That When Sailors Have To Move A Heavy Load Or Raise An Anchor, They All Sing Together To Keep Them Up And Give Them Vim. That's Just What Artists Lack!

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.

If One Keeps Loving Faithfully What Is Really Worth Loving, And Does Not Waste One's Love On Insignificant And Unworthy And Meaningless Things, One Will Get More Light By And By And Grow Stronger.

Meaningless Things

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

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!'

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 Am Working With The Enthusiasm Of A Man From Marseilles Eating Bouillabaisse, Which Shouldn't Come As A Surprise To You Because I Am Busy Painting Huge Sunflowers.

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.

The Great Artist Is The Simplifier.

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.

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 One Is Master Of One Thing And Understands One Thing Well, One Has At The Same Time, Insight Into And Understanding Of Many Things.

The Sunflower Is Mine, In A Way.

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

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

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

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

To Know Life, One Must Love Many Things.

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

I Use Color In A Completely Arbitrary Way In Order To Express Myself Powerfully.

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]

Painting Is A Faith, And It Imposes The Duty To Disregard Public Opinion.

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

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

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.

Man Is Not On The Earth Solely For His Own Happiness. He Is There To Realize Great Things For Humanity.

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

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

It Is Not Only By One's Impulses That One Achieves Greatness, But Also By Patiently Filing Away The Steel Wall That Separates What One Feels From What One Is Capable Of Doing.

My Brushwork Is Quite Unsystematic. I Slam The Paint On In All Sorts Of Ways And Leave Each Result To Take Care Of Itself.

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

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

Do You Know What Makes The Prison Disappear? Every Deep, Genuine Affection. Being Friends, Being Brothers, Loving, That Is What Opens The Prison, With Supreme Power, By Some Magic Force. Without These One Stays Dead. But Whenever Affection Is Revived, There Life Revives.

A Good Picture Is Equivalent To A Good Deed.

What Am I In The Eyes Of Most People - A Nonentity, An Eccentric, Or An Unpleasant Person - Somebody Who Has No Position In Society And Will Never Have; In Short, The Lowest Of The Low. All Right, Then - Even If That Were Absolutely True, Then I Should One Day Like To Show By My Work What Such An Eccentric, Such A Nobody, Has In His Heart.

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.

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

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

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

When Using Colors To Recreate A General Harmony Of Tones In Nature, One Loses It By Painfully Exact Imitation. One Keeps It By Recreating In An Equivalent Color Range, And That May Not Be Exactly, Or Far From Exactly, Like The Model.

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

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

A Good Painting Should Be The Equivalent Of A Good Deed.

Exaggerate The Essential, Leave The Obvious Vague.

I Shouldn't Precisely Have Chosen Madness If There Had Been Any Choice, But Once Such A Thing Has Taken Hold Of You, You Can't Very Well Get Out Of It.

Well, Do You Know What I Hope For, Once I Allow Myself To Begin To Hope? [...] That You Find In Your Love For People Something Not Only To Work For, But To Comfort And Restore You When There Is A Need.

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.

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!

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

Trending Author

Salvatore Quasimodo

George F. Kennan

George S. Patton

Janis Karpinski

Kristen Johnston

Category