Authors:

Vincent Van Gogh Quotes - Page 16

All Quotes Art Autumn Canvas Caring Character Choices Creativity Darkness Determination Difficulty Disappointment Earth Eating Education Effort Energy Enthusiasm Evil Falling In Love Feelings Fighting Giving God Gratitude Harmony Heart Humanity Imagination Impulse Inspiration Inspirational Language Life Loneliness Love Lying Making Mistakes Memories Morning Motivational Nature Painting Passion Perseverance Purpose Rain Reality Regret Sadness Sorrow Soul Study Suffering Summer Time True Love Understanding Victory Wall Winter Work Writing
a likeness different from the products of the God-fearing photographer.

a likeness different from the products of the God-fearing photographer.

Vincent Van Gogh
Different, Photographer, Realism
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2765, Delphi Classics

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Insecurity, Canvas, Blank
Vincent van Gogh, Vincent Willem Gogh (1927). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother, 1872-1886: With a Memoir by His Sister-in-law, J. Van Gogh-Bonger ...”

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

Vincent Van Gogh
Inspirational, Time, Ambition

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Heart, Way, Bread
Vincent van Gogh, Victoria Charles (2014). “Vincent van Gogh”, p.126, Parkstone International

Art is but imitation of nature.

Vincent Van Gogh
Art, Imitation, Art Is

It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one's youth.

Vincent Van Gogh
Gains, Youth, Pity
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2593, Delphi Classics

That I was not suited to commerce or academic study in no way proves that I should also be unfit to be a painter.

Vincent Van Gogh
Way, Study, Academic

If you work diligently... without saying to yourself beforehand, 'I want to make this or that,' if you work as though you were making a pair of shoes, without artistic preoccupation, you will not always find you do well. But the days you least expect it, you will find a subject which holds its own with the work of those who have gone before.

Vincent Van Gogh
Shoes, Gone, Want

But after all I find in my work an echo of what struck me. I see that nature has told me something, has spoken to me, and that I have put it down in shorthand. In my shorthand there may be words that cannot be deciphered. There may be mistakes or gap

Vincent Van Gogh
Mistake, Echoes, May
Vincent van Gogh, Mark Roskill (1997). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh”, p.167, Simon and Schuster

There was a sentence in your letter that struck me, “I wish I were far away from everything, I am the cause of all, and bring only sorrow to everybody, I alone have brought all this misery on myself and others.” These words struck me because that same feeling, just the same, not more nor less, is also on my conscience.

Vincent Van Gogh
Feelings, Sorrow, Wish
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.1219, Delphi Classics

Cobalt is a divine color and there is nothing as fine for putting an atmosphere round things. Carmine is the red of wine and is warm and lively like wine. The same goes for emerald green too. It's false economy to dispense with them, with those colors. Cadmium as well.

Vincent Van Gogh
Wine, Color, Atmosphere
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2552, Delphi Classics

If I did not succeed I still thought that what I had worked on would be continued. Not immediately. But there are others who believe in things that are true.

Vincent Van Gogh
Believe, Would Be, Succeed

When I have a model who is quiet and steady and with whom I am acquainted, then I draw repeatedly 'til there is one drawing that is different from the rest, which does not look like an ordinary study, but more typical and with more feeling.

Vincent Van Gogh
Drawing, Feelings, Typical
Vincent van Gogh, Anthon Gerhard Alexander Rappard (ridder van), Anthon van Rappard (1936). “Letters to an artist: from Vincent van Gogh to Anton ridder van Rappard, 1881-1885”

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.

Vincent Van Gogh
Years, Drawing, Done

A good painting should be the equivalent of a good deed.

Vincent Van Gogh
Deeds, Painting, Should

I believe I do much better for the time being by first copying some good things than by working without that foundation

Vincent Van Gogh
Believe, Foundation, Copying

You will say that everyone has seen landscapes and figures from childhood on. The question is: Has everybody also been reflexive as a child? Has everybody who has seen them also loved heath, fields, meadows, woods, and the snow and the rain and the s.

Vincent Van Gogh
Children, Rain, Snow

We are having wind and rain here, and I am very glad not to be alone. I work from memory on bad days, and that would not do if I were alone.

Vincent Van Gogh
Memories, Rain, Bad Day
Vincent van Gogh (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Vincent van Gogh (Illustrated)”, p.2997, Delphi Classics

To exaggerate the fairness of hair, I come even to orange tones, chromes and pale yellow ... I make a plain background of the richest, intensest blue that I can contrive, and by this simple combination of the bright head against the rich blue background, I get a mysterious effect, like a star in the depths of an azure sky.

Vincent Van Gogh
Stars, Simple, Pale Yellow
Vincent van Gogh (1929). “Further Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother, 1886-1889”

Painting is a faith and that it brings with it the duty to pay no heed to public opinion - and that in it one conquers by perseverance and not by giving in.

Vincent Van Gogh
Perseverance, Giving, Public Opinion

That this awareness of my own fallibility will prevent me from making many mistakes doesn't alter the fact that I'm bound to make a great many mistakes anyway. But if we fall, we get up again!

Vincent Van Gogh
Mistake, Fall, Facts
Vincent van Gogh (2009). “Saint-Rémy-de-Provence - Auvers-sur-Oise, 1889-1890, [772-902]”

Painting it was hard graft. There are one and a half large tubes of white in the ground - yet that ground is very dark.

Vincent Van Gogh
Dark, White, Half

I was certainly going the right way for a stroke when I left Paris. I paid for it nicely afterwards! When I stopped drinking, when I stopped smoking so much, when I began to think again instead of trying not to think - Good Lord, the depression and the prostration of it! Work in these magnificent natural surroundings (Arles) has restored my morale, but even now some efforts are too much for me: my strength fails me.

Vincent Van Gogh
Drinking, Thinking, Paris
Vincent van Gogh, Martin Bailey (1990). “Vicent van Gogh, letters from Provence”, Editorial Biblos

In the fullness of artistic life there is, and remains, and will always come back at times, that homesick longing for the truly ideal life that can never come true.

Vincent Van Gogh
Artistic Life, Homesick, Longing
Vincent van Gogh (1971). “Van Gogh's "diary"; the artist's life in his own words and art”

To save a life is a real and beautiful thing. To make a home for the homeless, yes, it is a thing that must be good; whatever the world may say, it cannot be wrong.

Vincent Van Gogh
Beautiful, Real, Home
Vincent van Gogh, Vincent Willem Gogh (1927). “The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh to His Brother, 1872-1886: With a Memoir by His Sister-in-law, J. Van Gogh-Bonger ...”

You May Also Like: