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Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh Quotes

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Famous Vincent Van Gogh Quotes

“And although it was in a hospital that she lay and I sat next to her—it is always that eternal poetry of Christmas night with the infant in the stable, as the old Dutch painters conceived it and MIllet and Breton—a light in the darkness, the brightness in the middle of a dark night. And so I hung a large etching after Rembrandt over it, the two women by the cradle, one of them reading from the Bible by candlelight, while the great shadows cast a deep chiaroscuro over the whole room.”

PaintingLettersChristmasDutchImpressionismNativityVan GoghRembrandtMadonna And Child
Book:The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
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“All the same, I'm sure that if one is brave then recovery comes from within, through complete acceptance of suffering and death, and through the surrender of one's will and love of self. But that's no good to me, I like to paint, to see people and things and everything that makes our life—artificial, if you like. Yes, real life would be something else, but I don't think I belong to that category of souls who are ready to live, and also ready to suffer, at any moment.”

ArtRealSufferingPaintingLetterRenunciation
Book:The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
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“Recently I've been working very hard and quickly; in this way I try to express the desperately fast passage of things in modern life. Yesterday, in the rain, I painted a large landscape with fields as far as the eye can see, viewed from a height, different kinds of greenery, a dark green field of potatoes, the rich purple earth between the regular rows of plants, to one side a field of peas white with bloom, a field of clover with pink flowers and the little figure of a mower, a field of tall, ripe, fawn-coloured grass, then some wheat, some poplars, on the horizon a last line of blue hills at the foot of which a train is passing, leaving an immense trail of white smoke over the greenery. A white road crosses the canvas, on the road a little carriage and some white houses with bright red roofs alongside a road. Fine drizzle streaks the whole with blue or grey lines.”

ArtPaintingLandscapeModern LifeCountrysideImpressionism1890Auvers Sur Oise
Book:The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
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“If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

IfsInspirationalBelieveMeanArtMotivationalVoiceCreativityCreativePositivePositive ThinkingPaintingConfidenceDeterminationPaintPerseveranceHearingSelf ConfidencePainterPersistenceBelieve In YourselfWithin YouBeing HappyBe CreativePositive LifeSelf ConsciousCreative PeopleInner VoiceInsperationalLoving YourselfHave ConfidenceExamSelf-doubtCreative ThinkingCreative ArtCreativity And InnovationBoost Self ConfidenceFamous ArtistBest SelfSelf Esteem And ConfidenceConfidence In YourselfCreative ImaginationCreative IdeasImagination And CreativityArt And CreativityIdeas And CreativityInspirational Success FailureCreative ExpressionInspire CreativityConfidence BoostingInspiration And CreativityInspirational ArtInspirations Being YourselfBoost Your ConfidenceImagination CreativityGreat ImaginationStudent MotivationSelf Confidence MotivationalArtists And WritersStudent MotivationalInspirational Self ConfidenceRaise Self EsteemExam MotivationalLive For YourselfWords Of ConfidenceArt InspirationImprove Self EsteemCollege SuccessMost EncouragingExam SuccessEncourage Students
Author:Vincent Van Gogh
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“What I need is courage, and this often fails me. And it is also a fact that since my disease, when I am in the fields I am overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness to such a horrible extent that I shy away from going out. But this will change all the same as time goes on. Only when I stand a painting before my easel do I feel somewhat alive. Never mind, this is going to change too, for now my health is so good that I suppose the physical part of me will gain the victory.”

NeedsFeelsMindFactsFeelingsAliveFailingLonelinessFieldsPaintingGoes OnVictoryDiseaseGainsHorribleShyGoing OutOverwhelmedTime Goes On
Book:Van Gogh, letters from Provence
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“I began to paint again, even though I could barely hold the brush, but knowing exactly what I wanted to paint, I began three more large canvases... of large wheat fields under cloudy skies, and it did not take a great deal to express sadness and loneliness... I believe these paintings say what words cannot.”

BelieveWantedThreeI BelieveDealsKnowingSadnessSkyLonelinessFieldsPaintingPaintBrushesWheatCloudyWheat FieldsCloudy SkiesSadness And Loneliness
Author:Vincent Van Gogh
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“All art is a gift. It is first of all a gift that the maker can do it. It is then a gift to someone else, whether they pay for it or not. The wonder of it is that we cannot get the production of these gifts stopped. Art is life seeking itself. It is our intractable expressions of love for the beauties, ideas and epiphanies we regularly find. I framed the painting. It's now hanging in our den. "I have walked this earth for 30 years, and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir.”

WantYearsFirstsArtIdeasEarthCan DoPayWonderPaintingExpressionGratitudeArt IsProductionsSeekingMakersEpiphanyFramedDensSouvenirsExpressions Of Love
Author:Vincent Van Gogh
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“The world concerns me only in so far as I have a certain debt and duty to it, because I have lived in it for thirty years and owe to it to leave behind some souvenir in the shape of drawings and paintings – not done to please any particular movement, but within which a genuine human sentiment is expressed.”

WorldYearsHumansDoneCertainBehindsMovementParticularPaintingDutyPleaseShapesConcernDebtDrawingGenuineThirtySentimentsThirty YearsSouvenirsDrawing And Painting
Author:Vincent Van Gogh
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“I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it — keep going, keep going come what may. But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.”

IfsFirstsLooksMayIdeasDoneTurnsAsksLostGoalStudyPathPaintingSeriousOriginalsFinalsCeasePassingPassingsRoughKeep GoingVagueWoeFleetingWork DoneDraughtConsolidationSlowly But SurelySerious WorkVague IdeasWoe Is Me
Author:Vincent Van Gogh
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“Christ alone, of all the philosophers, magicians, etc., has affirmed eternal life as the most important certainty, the infinity of time, the futility of death, the necessity and purpose of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as an artist greater than all other artists, scorning marble and clay and paint, working in the living flesh. In other words, this peerless artist, scarcely conceivable with the blunt instrument of our modern, nervous and obtuse brains, made neither statues nor paintings nor books. He maintained in no uncertain terms that he made ... living men, immortals.”

MenMadeImportantBookPurposeArtistTermChristBrainGreaterModernPaintingEternalInstrumentsPaintPhilosopherFleshDevotionNervousCertaintyEtcInfinitySerenityUncertainMagicianClayStatuesEternal LifeMarbleFutilityBluntChrist Alone
Author:Vincent Van Gogh
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“But what's your ultimate goal, you'll say. That goal will become clearer, will take shape slowly and surely, as the croquis becomes a sketch and the sketch a painting, as one works more seriously, as one digs deeper into the originally vague idea, the first fugitive, passing thought, unless it becomes firm.”

FirstsIdeasGoalPaintingShapesUltimateDeeperPassingPassingsFirmVagueImpressiveUltimate GoalDig DeepFugitiveVague Ideas
Book:Saint-Rémy-de-Provence - Auvers-sur-Oise, 1889-1890, [772-902]
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