Bram van Velde Quotes
-
I don’t set out to speak a comprehensible language. But my language is authentic.
-
Painting doesn't interest me.. .What I paint is beyond painting.
-
Artists don’t live in the everyday world. That’s why people think they’re an odd bunch.
-
Paris with its multitude of art directions calls continuously to the deepest penetration and recognition of your inner essence. Only in this way it is possible to create work that refers the time span.
-
What makes a painting fascinating is its sincerity. Sincerity is such a rare thing. Most people don't dare to be sincere.
-
There is only the present. A painting is an instant of time that has escaped oblivion.
-
A painter is someone who can't use words. His only escape is to be a seer.
-
I am in a thousand pieces. Painting somehow makes me whole.
-
Life is wrecked by living.
-
Van Gogh.. Fascinating. The fragility of that strong spirit.
-
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.
-
Through painting I try to get closer to nothingness, to the void.
-
The less you think, the better it is.
-
Because it's an adventure out of all proportion. You have to devote all your strength to it and it's never enough.
-
Painting is so stupid, so simple. I paint to get out of the through. I paint my misery.
-
To be true, you have to take the plunge, to touch bottom. But most people want to be in control. They fear the worst. You can’t control anything. What you have to do is let yourself be taken over.. .All the paintings I have made, I was compelled to make. You must never force yourself.
-
When I look back to a recent painting, I can hardly bear th suffering in it.
-
Mondrian.. .The constructivists?.. .They had certainties. They wanted a stable basis to work on, but I’m afraid that that was enormous arrogance on their part. Nothing is stable and no certainties are possible.
-
What the eye can see won't get us very far. And what it can see is so limited, so restricted. But a gouache or an oil painting can be seen at a glance, can take in a whole world at a single glance.
-
Mondrian? His mind was too subtle. He worked in the light. I work in the darkness.. .Mondrian is the Buddha of painting. I saw him once. You wondered how a man could radiate such charisma.
-
Painting is being alive. Through my painting, I beat back this world that stops us living and where we are in constant danger of being destroyed.. .No, you have to know when to keep silent.
-
Most people's lives are governed by willpower. An artist is someone who has no will.
-
The artist is living a secret that he has to make manifest.
-
In this world that destroys me, the only thing that I can do is to live my weakness. That weakness is my only strength.