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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.

-Vincent Van Gogh

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What Is Drawing? How

Vincent Van Gogh

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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.

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More From Vincent Van Gogh

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I Try More And More To Be Myself, Caring Relatively Little Whether People Approve Or Disapprove.

The Canvas Has An Idiotic Stare And Mesmerises Some Painters So Much That They Turn Into Idiots Themselves.

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

Well, I Dare Not Allow Myself Any Illusions, And I Am Afraid It May Never Happen That Father And Mother Will Really Appreciate My Art. It Is Not Their Fault; We Do Not See The Same Things With The Same Eyes, Or Have The Same Thoughts Raised In Us By Them. They Will Never Be Able To Understand What Painting Is.

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

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.

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.

The Best Pictures Are Always Those One Dreams Of When One Is Smoking A Pipe In Bed, But Which Never Get Done. But Still One Ought To Try, However Incompetent One May Feel Before The Unspeakable Perfection And Radiant Splendour Of Nature.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

What Is True Is That I Have At Times Earned My Own Crust Of Bread, And At Other Times A Friend Has Given It To Me Out Of The Goodness Of His Heart. I Have Lived Whatever Way I Could, For Better Or For Worse, Taking Things Just As They Came.

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.

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

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.

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 . . . .

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

Painting Demands An Intelligent Model.

What Is Done In Love Is Done Well.

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.

Though I Am Often In The Depths Of Misery, There Is Still Calmness, Pure Harmony And Music Inside Me.

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

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.

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.

Art Is But Imitation Of Nature.

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

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

Wedding Anniversary

Often Whole Days Pass Without My Speaking To Anyone.

Art Is To Console Those Who Are Broken By Life.

A Good Picture Is Equivalent To A Good Deed.

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

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.

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.

The More I Think About It, The More I Realize There Is Nothing More Artistic Than To Love Others.

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

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

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

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

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.

Do Not Quench Your Inspiration And Your Imagination; Do Not Become The Slave Of Your Model.

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

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.

Color In A Picture Is Like Enthusiasm In Life.

Enthusiasm For Life

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

In Trees, I See Expression And Soul

I Sometimes Think There Is Nothing So Delightful As Drawing.

Art Demands Constant Observation.

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 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.

Perhaps Someday Everyone Will Have Neurosis.

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.

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

To Know Life, One Must Love Many Things.

You Have First To Experience What You Want To Express.

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.

If One Truly Loves Nature One Finds Beauty Everywhere.

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.

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

But You Must Love With A Sublime , Genuine , Profound Sympathy , With Devotion, With Intelligence , And You Must Try All The Time To Understand Him More, Better And Yet More. That Will Lead To God , That Will Lead To An Unshakeable Faith .

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

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

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!

I Think That I Still Have It In My Heart Someday To Paint A Bookshop With The Front Yellow And Pink In The Evening...like A Light In The Midst Of The Darkness.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

So Often, A Visit To A Bookshop Has Cheered Me, And Reminded Me That There Are Good Things In The World.

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.

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

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.

I Believe That One Thinks Much More Soundly If The Thoughts Arise From Direct Contact With Things, Than If One Looks At Things With The Aim Of Finding This Or That In Them.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Conscience Is A Man's Compass.

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

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

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

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.

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

I Am Not An Adventurer By Choice But By Fate.

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

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

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

I Believe It Is One's Duty To Paint The Rich And Magnificent Aspects Of Nature. We Need Gaiety And Happiness, Hope And Love.

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.

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

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.

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

In Order To Work And To Become An Artist One Needs Love. At Least, One Who Wants Sentiment In His Work Must In The First Place Feel It Himself, And Live With His Heart

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Yellow Is Capable Of Charming God.

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!!!

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.

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

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

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

The Cypresses Are Always Occupying My Thoughts.

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

Selfless Service

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

There Is No Blue Without Yellow And Without Orange.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is Something Intimate About Painting I Cannot Explain To You ? But It Is So Delightful Just For Expressing One's Feelings.

Love Is Something Eternal.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

One Can Speak Poetry Just By Arranging Colors Well, Just As One Can Say Comforting Things In Music.

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

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

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

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

There Is Peace Even In The Storm

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

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

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

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!

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.'

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

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.

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

Purity Of Soul And Impurity Of Body Can Go Together.

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.

Exaggerate The Essential, Leave The Obvious Vague.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

The More Ugly, Older, More Cantankerous, More Ill And Poorer I Become, The More I Try To Make Amends By Making My Colours More Vibrant, More Balanced And Beaming.

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.

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

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

It Interests Me Tremendously To Make Copies... I Started It By Chance And I Find It Teaches Me Things.

Only When I Fall Do I Get Up Again.

Making Mistakes

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

I'll Start With Small Things.

If One Wants To Be Active, One Must Not Be Afraid Of Going Wrong, One Must Not Be Afraid Of Making Mistakes Now And Then. Many People Think That They Will Become Good Just By Doing No Harm -- But That's A Lie.... That Way Lies Stagnation, Mediocrity.

There Is No Such Thing As An Ugly Woman.

I Wish They Would Take Me As I Am.

Take Me As I Am

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