Vincent van Gogh Quotes

When you [Theo] come you must see my woodcuts again. I've got some new ones since last time.
It seemed to you perhaps as if the sun shone brighter and everything had acquired a new charm. At any rate, I believe this is always the effect of a serious love [Vincent doesn't call here his love Sien,] and that's a delightful thing.. .I can find no words for how beautiful the old courtyards are here. And although Jozef Israëls does it perfectly, so to speak, I find it strange that so relatively few pay them any attention. Here in The Hague every day, so to speak, I see a world which a great many pass by and which is very different from what most are making. And wouldn't dare say this if I hadn't had the experience of figure painters actually passing it by as well, and remembered walking with them and, when I was struck by this or that figure we encountered, hearing repeatedly 'Oh, but those filthy folk' or 'that sort of people' — in short, expressions one wouldn't expect from a painter.

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.

There are things which we feel to be good and true, though in the cold light of reason and calculation many things remain incomprehensible and dark. And though the society in which we live considers such actions thoughtless, or reckless, or I don't know what else, what can we say if once the hidden forces of sympathy and love have been roused in us? And though it may be that we cannot argue against the reasoning sentiment and to act from impulse, one would almost conclude that some people have cauterized certain sensitive nerves within them, especially those which, combined, are called conscience. Well, I pity those people; they travel through life without compass, in my opinion.

And my intention is to try to form a collection of many such things, which would not be quite unworthy of the title 'heads of the people.' By working hard, boy, I hope to succeed in making something good. It isn't there yet, but I aim at it, and struggle for it. I want something serious, - some thing fresh - something with soul in it! Forward - forward -

Some good must come by clinging to the right. Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities in directing one's course by it, still one must try to follow its direction.

I fear that in a few years there may be a kind of 'panic', in this form: 'since Millet' we have sunk very low — the word decadence, now whispered or pronounced in veiled terms (see Herkomer), will then sound like an alarm bell. Many, like I myself, now keep quiet, because they already have the reputation of being awkward customers,5 and talking about it doesn't help. That — namely, talking — isn't what one needs to do — one must work, though with sorrow in the heart. Those who later cry out the loudest about decadence will themselves belong to it the most. I repeat: by this shall ye know them, [from: Matt. 7:16.] by their work, and it won't be the most eloquent who say the truest things. See Millet himself, see Herkomer, they're certainly not orators, and speak almost reluctantly.

Now, such an enterprise as would be the drawing and printing [by lithography ] of a series of, for instance, thirty pages of types of workmen, a sower, a digger, a woodcutter, a plowman, a wash-woman, then also a child's cradle or a man from the almshouse - well, the whole immeasurable field lies open, there are plenty of beautiful subjects - I should think the following would be the best way: as it is useful and necessary that Dutch drawings are made, printed, and spread, destined for the houses of workmen, a few persons should unite in order to use their full strength for this end.

Variant: Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

..How I paint I do not know myself. I sit down with a white board before the spot that strikes me, I look at what is before me, I say to myself that white board must become something, I come back dissatisfied - I put it away, and when I have rested a little I go to look at it with a kind of fear. Then I am still dissatisfied, because I have still too closely in my mind that splendid nature..

..I have painted a few studies of the figure.. .I send you [Theo] two sketches. The painting of the figure appeals to me very much, but it must ripen - I must learn to know the technique better - that which is sometimes called "la cuisine de l'art". In the beginning I shall have to do much scraping, and often to begin anew, but I feel that I learned from it and that gives me a new fresh view on the things.

The Dupré's [pictures] are superb and there's a Daubigny.. ..that I couldn't get enough of. The same goes for a small Corot [probably Corot's painting 'Pond at Ville-d'Avray',] a stretch of water and the edge of a wood on a summer morning about 4 o'clock. A single small pink cloud indicates that the sun will come up in a while. A stillness and calm and peace that enchants one.

I recently saw the exhibition of French art (on the Boschkant) [The Hague] from the collections of Mesdag, Post &c. .. ..I especially liked the large sketch by T. Rousseau from the Mesdag collection, a drove of cattle in the Alps. And a landscape by Gustave Courbet 'Hilly landscape', 1858/59], yellow hilly, sandy ground, with fresh young grass growing here and there, with black brushwood fences against which a few white birch trunks stand out, grey buildings in the distance with red and blue slate roofs. And a narrow, small, light delicate grey band of sky above. The horizon very high, however, so that the ground is the main thing, and the delicate little band of sky really serves more as contrast to bring out the rough texture of the masses of dark earth. I think this is the most beautiful work by Courbet that I've seen so far.

This winter I met a pregnant woman [ Sien / Christine ] deserted by the man whose child she bore. A pregnant woman who in winter had to walk the streets, had to earn her bread, you understand how. I took that woman for a model, and have worked with her all the winter. I could not pay her the full wages of a model, but that did not prevent my paying her rent, and, thank God, I have been able thus far to protect her and her child from hunger and cold, by sharing my own bread with her.. .It seems to me that every man worth his salt would have done the same in a similar case. What I did was so simple and natural, that I thought I could keep it to.

To stroll on wharves, and in alleys and in streets and in the houses, waiting-rooms, even saloons, that is not a pleasant pastime unless for an artist. As such, one would rather be in the dirtiest place where there is something to draw, than at a tea party with charming ladies. Unless one wants to draw ladies, then a tea party is all right even for an artist.

Dutch original text of his letter (citaat uit Van Gogh's brief, in het origineel Nederlands): Ziehier een lijstje van hollandsche schilderijen voor den [Parijse] Salon bestemd:
- Israels, een oud man: ..een oud man zit in een hutje bij een haard.. waarin een klein brokje turf nog even gloeit in de schemering. Want het is een donker hutje waar dat oud mannetje in zit, een oud hutje met een klein raampje met een wit gordijntje.– Zijn hond die met hem oud is geworden zit naast hem – die twee oudjes kijken elkaar aan, zij kijken elkaar in de oogen, die hond en dat mannetje. En intusschen haalt het mannetje zijn tabaksdoos uit zijn broekzak en hij stopt een pijpje zoo in de schemering. Anders niets – die schemering, die stilte, die eenzaamheid van die twee oudjes, mannetje en hond, dat elkaar kennen van die twee, dat nadenken van dien ouden man.. ..dat gelaat – een expressie weemoedig, tevreden, onderworpen.. .Ik weet bepaald geen ander schilderij dan deze Israels die het bij 'De Dood en de Houthakker' van Millet kan uithouden, dat men er te gelijk mee kan zien, ik weet van den anderen kant geen ander schilderij dat het naast deze Israels zou uithouden dan De Dood en de Houthakker van Millet, geen ander schilderij dat men te gelijk met deze Israels zien kan. Verder gevoel ik in mijn verbeelding een onweerstaanbaar streven om dat schij [schilderij] van Israels & dat andere van Millet tot elkaar te brengen en elkaar te doen completeeren.. .Het is een fameuse Israels,.