Vincent Van Gogh Quotes
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In general, and most especially with artists, I pay as much attention to the man who does the work, as to the work itself.
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For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
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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.
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Sometimes art seems to be something very sublime, and, as you say, something sacred.
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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
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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.
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The laws of the colors are unutterably beautiful, just because they are not accidental.
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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.
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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.
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How to achieve such anomalies, such alterations and re-fashionings of reality so what comes out of it are lies, if you like, but lies that are more than literal truth.
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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.
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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.
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...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?
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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.
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It's better to have a gay life of it than to commit suicide.
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If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.
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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.
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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.
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If your inner voice is telling you that you can't paint, by all means, hurry up and paint and silence the voice.
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As long as autumn lasts, I shall not have hands, canvas and colors enough to paint the beautiful things I see.
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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.
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One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well, just as one can say comforting things in music.
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For myself, I declare I don't know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream.
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Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.