Here's what I wanted to say about the white and the black [tones]. Let's take 'The Sower'. The painting is divided into two; one half is yellow, the top; the bottom is violet. Well, the white trousers [Van Gogh darked them later!] rest the eye and distract it just when the excessive simultaneous contrast of yellow and violet would annoy it. That's what I wanted to say.
Dutch painter (1853–1890)
Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. Not commercially successful, he struggled with severe depression and poverty, eventually leading to his suicide at age thirty-seven.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Alternative Names:
Vincent Willem van Gogh
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van Gogh
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Vincent Van Gogh
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Van Gogh
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To express the love of two lovers by the marriage of two complementary colours, their blending and their contrast, the mysterious vibrations of related tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a dark background. To express hope by some star. Someone's passion by the radiance of the setting sun. That's certainly no realistic trompe l'oeil, but something that really exists, isn't it?
Housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the following plate was completed in 1886, portraying the unusual subject of a skeleton smoking a cigarette. The work has roused many interpretations, including a depiction of mortality and a prophetic cry of the dangers of tobacco. In the next two years, van Gogh painted two other paintings with skulls, illustrating his fascination with the macabre subject.
"It must be good to die in the knowledge that one has done some truthful work and to know that, as a result, one will live on in the memory of at least a few, and leave a good example for those who come after. A work that is good may not last for ever, but the thought expressed by it will. And the work itself will surely survive for a very long time. And those who come later can do no better than follow in the footsteps of such predecessors and copy their example."
"The Letters of Vincent van Gogh" (Amsterdam, 3 March 1878)
I’m always inclined to believe that the best way of knowing [the divine] is to love a great deal. Love that friend, that person, that thing, whatever you like, you’ll be on the right path to knowing more thoroughly, afterwards; that’s what I say to myself. But you must love with a high, serious intimate sympathy, with a will, with intelligence, and you must always seek to know more thoroughly, better, and more.
The work is an absolute necessity for me. I can't put it off, I don't care for anything but the work; that is to say, the pleasure in something else ceases at once and I become melancholy when I can't go on with my work. Then I feel like a weaver who sees that his threads are tangled, and the pattern he had on the loom is gone to hell, and all his thought and exertion is lost.
You know what I want. If I may become a clergyman, if I fulfill that position so that my work is equal to that of our Father [who was a clergy-man], then I shall thank God. I have good hope that I shall succeed, it was once said to me by someone who was further on in life than I, and who was no stranger in Jerusalem:.. .I believe that you are a Christian, you see, it was so good for me to hear those words.. .It is good to believe that there is a God who knows what we need, better than we know it ourselves, and who helps us when we need help. It is also good to believe that, just as in the olden days, now, too, an angel is not far from those who feel godly sorrow.. .I've carefully read the story of Elijah so often, and so often has it given me strength up to now: [Vincent then quotes 1 Kings 19:3-15, leaving out all but the beginning of verses 14 and 15]
It constantly remains a source of disappointment to me that my drawings are not yet what I want them to be. The difficulties are indeed numerous and great, and cannot be overcome at once. To make progress is a kind of miner's work; it doesn't advance as quickly as one would like, and as others also expect, but as one stands before such a task, the basic necessities are patience and faithfulness. In fact, I do not think much about the difficulties, because if one thought of them too much one would get stunned or disturbed. A weaver who has to direct and to interweave a great many little threads has no time to philosophize about it, but rather he is so absorbed in his work that he doesn't think but acts, and he feels how things must go more than he can explain it. Even though neither you nor I, in talking together, would come to any definite plans, etc., perhaps we might mutually strengthen that feeling that something is ripening within us. And that is what I should like.
"عزيزي ثيو:
إلى أين تمضي الحياة بي؟ ما الذي يصنعه العقل بنا؟ إنه يفقد الأشياء بهجتها ويقودنا نحو الكآبة...
... إنني أتعفن مللا لولا ريشتي وألواني هذه، أعيد بها خلق الأشياء من جديد.. كل الأشياء تغدو باردة وباهتة بعدما يطؤها الزمن.. ماذا أصنع؟ أريد أن أبتكر خطوطا وألوانا جديدة، غير تلك التي يتعثر بصرنا بها كل يوم.
كل الألوان القديمة لها بريق حزين في قلبي. هل هي كذلك في الطبيعة أم أن عيني مريضتان؟ ها أنا أعيد رسمها كما أقدح النار الكامنة فيها.
في قلب المأساة ثمة خطوط من البهجة أريد لألواني أن تظهرها، في حقول "الغربان" وسنابل القمح بأعناقها الملوية. وحتى "حذاء الفلاح" الذي يرشح بؤسا ثمة فرح ما أريد أن أقبض عليه بواسطة اللون والحركة... للأشياء القبيحة خصوصية فنية قد لا نجدها في الأشياء الجميلة وعين الفنان لا تخطئ ذلك.
اليوم رسمت صورتي الشخصية ففي كل صباح، عندما أنظر إلى المرآة أقول لنفسي:
أيها الوجه المكرر، يا وجه فانسان القبيح، لماذا لا تتجدد؟
أبصق في المرآة وأخرج ...
واليوم قمت بتشكيل وجهي من جديد، لا كما أرادته الطبيعة، بل كما أريده أن يكون:
عينان ذئبيتان بلا قرار. وجه أخضر ولحية كألسنة النار. كانت الأذن في اللوحة ناشزة لا حاجة بي إليها. أمسكت الريشة، أقصد موس الحلاقة وأزلتها.. يظهر أن الأمر اختلط علي، بين رأسي خارج اللوحة وداخلها... حسنا ماذا سأفعل بتلك الكتلة اللحمية؟
أرسلتها إلى المرأة التي لم تعرف قيمتي وظننت أني أحبها.. لا بأس فلتجتمع الزوائد مع بعضها.. إليك أذني أيتها المرأة الثرثارة، تحدثي إليها... الآن أستطيع أن أسمع وأرى بأصابعي. بل إن إصبعي السادس "الريشة" لتستطيع أكثر من ذلك: إنها ترقص وتب وتداعب بشرة اللوحة...
أجلس متأملاً :
لقد شاخ العالم وكثرت تجاعيده وبدأ وجه اللوحة يسترخي أكثر... آه يا إلهي ماذا باستطاعتي أن أفعل قبل أن يهبط الليل فوق برج الروح؟ الفرشاة. الألوان. و... بسرعة أتداركه: ضربات مستقيمة وقصيرة. حادة ورشيقة..ألواني واضحة وبدائية. أصفر أزرق أحمر.. أريد أن أعيد الأشياء إلى عفويتها كما لو أن العالم قد خرج تواً من بيضته الكونية الأولى.
مازلت أذكر:
كان الوقت غسقا أو ما بعد الغسق وقبل الفجر. اللون الليلكي يبلل خط الأفق... آه من رعشة الليلكي. عندما كنا نخرج إلى البستان لنسرق التوت البري. كنت مستقراً في جوف الشجرة أراقب دودة خضراء وصفراء