Vincent Van Gogh Quotes
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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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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.
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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.
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It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.
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Drawing is the root of everything, and the time spent on that is actually all profit.
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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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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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I believe that it may happen that one will succeed, and one must not begin to despair, even though defeated here and there; and even though one sometimes feels a kind of decay, though things go differently from the expected, it is necessary to take heart again and new courage. For the great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not something accidental, but must certainly be willed. What is drawing? How does one learn it? It is working through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do.
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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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I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.
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I want to do drawings which touch some people... In either figure or landscape I wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow.
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The more I become decomposed, the more sick and fragile I am, the more I become an artist.
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Art is jealous, and demands our whole strength ... .
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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.
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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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As you can see, I am immersing myself in color-I've held back from that until now; and I don't regret it.
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The lamps are burning and the starry sky is over it all.
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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.
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What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
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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.
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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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Sometimes art seems to be something very sublime, and, as you say, something sacred.
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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!'
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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.