Bram van Velde Quotes

Dutch painter (1895-1981)

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Bram (Abraham Gerardus) van Velde (October 19, 1895 – December 28, 1981) was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored abstract painting style. He is often seen as member of the 'Ecole de Paris' but his work resides somewhere between Expressionism and Surrealism; it evolved in the 1960's into an expressive colorful Abstract art.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pen Names: Velde, Bram von

Native Name: Bram (Abraham Gerardus) van Velde

Alternative Names: Abraham Gerardus van Velde • Abraham Gerardus Van Velde • Bram Velde • Bram Van Velde • Abraham Gerardus Velde • bram van velde • Bram van de Velde

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A painting is not a battle against other people, but against oneself.

It is true that other people can help you, and to lasting effect.. .If I hadn't had Beckett in 1940 [in Paris, when Van Velde was strongly demoralized by the death of his wife], I'm not sure I could have stood it. I am really not sure.. .At that time he [Beckett] he was driven by an extremely aggressive and fiery Irish spirit. That has lessened as time has gone on.. .I don't know anywhere in modern art any more faithful or more impressive picture of contemporary humanity than the one he offers us in 'The Unamable'.

When you are working, you are so far away and so absorbed, it's inevitable that you fall into a vacuum when you stop.. ..every time when I finish a painting, I always have to wait to get my strength back before I can begin another.

I start off on the canvas and, little by little, it imposes its own solution. But that solution is not easy to find.

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.

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

When I am painting, driven by lively tensions, I want to express what’s going on in me. When that tension has ceased, when the life in me became visible, then something happened which had to happen. Over and over again you experience a work which is created in this way. What happened? It is hard to say, because it was not my mind that led but the inner desire that revealed its inner life.

Creating a painting is a matter of ensuring that all its parts achieve unity. Though it's a precarious, fragile unity.

There's a perpetual duel going on between the world of the spirit and the world of things. Although the one only has meaning in relation to the other.

Painting, an oeuvre, is not such a big deal, it is so unimportant. But that’s precisely what makes it interesting.

I am well aware that a painting must inevitably be a bizarre, incomprehensible thing.

When you get to the bottom, you discover that there is no room for pride. That’s what I paint.

Life is so difficult to catch.

The real horror is mass production. Painting when there is no compulsion to do so… …Pictures like that are all unpunished crimes.

Artists don’t live in the everyday world. That’s why people think they’re an odd bunch.