Vincent van Gogh Quotes

Dutch painter (1853–1890)

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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.

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Alternative Names: Vincent Willem van Gogh • van Gogh • Vincent Van Gogh • Van Gogh

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Try to grasp the essence of what the great artists, the serious masters, say in their masterpieces, and you will again find God in them. One man has written or said it in a book, another in a painting.

I've just finished a canvas of a café interior at night [''Night Café''], lit by lamps. Some poor night-prowlers are sleeping in a corner. The room is painted red, and inside, in the gaslight, the green billiard table, which casts an immense shadow over the floor. In this canvas there are 6 or 7 different reds, from blood-red to delicate pink, contrasting with the same number of pale or dark greens.

original Dutch text: Wij wandelden aan den Buitenkant [Prins Hendrikkade] & daar aan die zandwerken aan de Oosterspoor (voormalig treinstation in Amsterdam), kan U niet zeggen hoe schoon het daar was in de schemering. Rembrandt, Michel (Franse Barbizon schilder) en anderen hebben het wel geschilderd, de grond donker, de lucht nog verlicht door den gloed van de ondergegane zon, de rei huizen en torens er boven uit, de lichten overal in de vensters, alles weerkaatsende in het water. En de menschen en rijtuigen als kleine zwarte figuurtjes overal. Zooals men dat op een Rembrandt soms ziet. En het stemde ons zoo dat wij over allerlei begonnen te spreken.

How much sadness there is in life. Still, it won’t do to become depressed, one should turn to other things, and the right thing is work, but there are times when one can only find peace of mind in the realization: I, too, shall not be spared by unhappiness”_Page.241

You can feel the stars and the infinity of the sky. Since life, in spite of everything, is like a fairytale.

.You would also be mistaken if you [Theo] thought that I would do well to follow your advice literally, of becoming an engraver of bill-headings and visiting cards, or a bookkeeper or a carpenter's apprentice, - or else to devote myself to the baker's trade, - or many similar things.. ..that other people advise me.

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.

What a queer thing touch is, the stroke of the brush. In the open air, exposed to wind, to sun, to the curiosity of the people, you work as you can, you feel your canvas anyhow.. .But when after a time you take up again this study and arrange your brush strokes in the direction of the objects - certainly it is more harmonious and pleasant to look at, and you add whatever you have of serenity and cheerfulness.

At the moment I quite often go to draw with Breitner [in the streets of The Hague], a young painter who's acquainted with Rochussen as I am with Mauve. He draws very skilfully and very differently from me, and we often draw types together in the soup kitchen or the waiting room &c. He sometimes comes to my studio to look at woodcuts, and I go to see the ones he has as well.

When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion, then I go out and paint the stars.

The sadness will last forever.

The cure for him would be to take a good long look at some potato plants, which have lately had such a deep and distinctive colour and tone, instead of driving himself mad looking at pieces of yellow satin and gold leather.

I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.

You will say that I am not a success - vaincre or être vaincu, [to conquer or to be conquered], it doesn't matter to me, one has feeling and movement in any event, and they are more akin than they may seem to be or than can be put into words.

Admire as much as you can, most people don't admire enough.