Q - Vincent Van Gogh
Posted on 28th January 2021
Vincent Willem van Gogh 1853 - 1890, was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, influential in the history of Western art.
He is famous for painting landscapes, still life and portraits and during the period 1885-1889 he was to paint over forty-three self-portraits.
‘Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul’
‘There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke’
‘Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it’
‘I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process’
‘I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream’
‘It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent’
‘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’
‘One can speak poetry just by arranging colours well, just as one can say comforting things in music’
‘I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate’
‘I long so much to make beautiful things. But beautiful things require effort – and disappointment and perseverance’
‘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’
‘I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed’
‘For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream’
‘The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore’
‘I dream of painting and then I paint my dream’
‘What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything’
‘It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to. The feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures’
‘Drawing is the root of everything, and the time spent on that is actually all profit’
‘Conscience is a man’s compass’
‘I often think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day’
‘Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well’
‘It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that when we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation – of loneliness, of poverty and misery, the end of all things, or their extreme – then rises in our mind the thought of God’
‘Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together’
‘If you hear a voice within you saying “you cannot paint” then by all means paint … and the voice will be silenced’
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