Bram van Velde Quotes
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I am in the void. Nothing to hang on to.
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They make you and you have no say in it. It’s w:Godot all the time. A chain around your neck and the whip cracking behind you.
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About Van Gogh.. a man who is on fire, a torch. His sincerity is absolute. His best painting is the grain field where he kills himself. There we find ourselves at the border of the art of painting. We cannot go further.
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The most incredible thing is that so much happens outside of the will. You can't will anything. Not even solitude is an act of will. You simply endure it. You must hold on until the very end, without weakening. You can do nothing else. But you must not believe that because you accept being nothing, you are anyone special.
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Painting, an oeuvre, is not such a big deal, it is so unimportant. But that’s precisely what makes it interesting.
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I don’t set out to speak a comprehensible language. But my language is authentic.
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I am well aware that a painting must inevitably be a bizarre, incomprehensible thing.
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When you cross any border there is always an uneasy moment when you feel yourself automatically an enemy. Artists don’t belong to any group or country... When you are living the truth, the world no longer exists, events become unimportant. But the way of truth is not easy.. ..if you are on the side of truth, you have no power. That’s why you are always defeated. The power, all the power, is on the side of the world.. .I have been completely absorbed in my adventure. No country, no family, no ties. I didn’t exist anymore. I just had to press on.
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Painting lives only through the slide towards the unknown in oneself.
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I have to try to see where seeing is no longer possible, where visibility is gone.
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I feel myself tied to life. To the immensity and complexity of life. Each painting is an impulse towards life.
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A painting is not a battle against other people, but against oneself.
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What makes a painting fascinating is its sincerity. Sincerity is such a rare thing. Most people don't dare to be sincere.
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I think there is a degree of primitivism in what I do.. .You have to see without illusions. Without trying to protect yourself.
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Each time it’s an attempt to get there. To get to see. To get where you can see.
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Life is wrecked by living.
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Because it's an adventure out of all proportion. You have to devote all your strength to it and it's never enough.
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The beauty other people create is not for the artists. Artists have to live alone.
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You are in an area where knowledge fails. Where you have to advance in ignorance, not even knowing where you are going.
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I'm now in a big working period, which takes me up so much that hardly anything of me remains. I have never been strong in theories and this becomes worse and worse. My work should give me satisfaction, and that is about life and death.. .Several paintings full of life and beauty arose again and give me the courage and joy to proceed on the road. There are also several paintings in which I am involved for less than half, discharges in a short time, which have existence for a while, but will not reach shaping.
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Yes, perhaps there is some enjoyment in it his paintings too, somewhere.
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The most difficult thing is when you can’t do anything. When you just have to wait.
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Through painting I try to get closer to nothingness, to the void.
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Van Gogh.. Fascinating. The fragility of that strong spirit.