Bram van Velde Quotes

I think there is a degree of primitivism in what I do.. .You have to see without illusions. Without trying to protect yourself.

I feel myself tied to life. To the immensity and complexity of life. Each painting is an impulse towards life.

Most people's lives are governed by willpower. An artist is someone who has no will.

Oh Baudelaire.. .He used to be enormously important to me. It's thanks to him that I was able to get through the war [in Paris, during 1940 – 1945 Van Velde had a long and painful break, with only a few paintings he finished]. A true loyal mind without hypocrisy. The most universal spirit. The greatest Frenchman. I have always been much less interested in painters [than Baudelaire - a great surprise to hear for Charles Juliet the interviewer].

Something is trying to come into the world. But I don’t know what it is. I never start by knowing. It's impossible to know. Truth is not knowledge.

When I look back to a recent painting, I can hardly bear th suffering in it.

Painting is so stupid, so simple. I paint to get out of the through. I paint my misery.

Painting is getting in touch with the truth. It's a matter of summoning up the vision I need.

Everything has to end before it can begin.

I can’t say anything. There are no words.

Van Gogh.. .In this world of petty calculations, he was too intense. He frightened people. They cast him out.

Picasso.. ..the master.. ..being a master: 'I don't search, I find' [a famous quote of Picasso, where he criticize the 'searching' artists] ..the master, the mastery.. ..Producing, producing.. .He [Picasso!] only knows how to work, can’t do anything else. What lost souls!.. .The great risk is producing for its own sake. You must never force things. You just have to wait.

You are in an area where knowledge fails. Where you have to advance in ignorance, not even knowing where you are going.

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.

An artist’s life is all very fine and moving. But only in retrospect. In books.