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Van Gogh Quotes

Browse 44 quotes about Van Gogh.

Van Gogh Quotes

“The desire to succeed had left Vincent. He worked because he had to, because it kept him from suffering too much mentally, because it distracted his mind. He could do without a wife, a home, and children; he could do without love and friendship and health; he could do without security, comfort, and food; he could even do without God. But he could not do without something which was greater than himself, which was his life—the power and ability to create.”

LifeArtDesireVan GoghVincent
Book:Lust for Life
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“You see when you are selling under ten books and stories a year and you have zero likes on most of your quotes, that is the special time where you have a very close relationship with your art. I mean you still have total trust in your art and your art still has total trust in you. And so does the universe, or God. That is the reward. The relationship or connection with your art is untainted, pure, beautiful. I mean who is the most famous painter in the world? You see, distractions like fame destroy all that. It is just a shame that he did not live long enough to celebrate his success as a creator, though I am sure he did in his own way. This is related to your ego or label that you later accept when you are known by the masses, because when you are unknown, unread, unseen, un-smelled, unfelt, unheard, you are not yet labelled. Bukowski talked about that, how young authors were destroyed when they became famous early, their art being corrupted by their ego, and how others turned to political commentary. Bukowski was grateful that he never made it when he was young. So, he could carry on creating undisturbed, as it were, by society. Of course they came for him eventually, but as he famously said, they came for me too late. The remarkable thing about Van Gogh and Bukowski was how they both kept creating great art until their deaths. The fact that you are reading this quote and I am still unknown, and more importantly unlabelled is a blessing to you and me.”

FameEgoAuthorsBukowskiVan GoghCreatorsCharles BukowskiLabelVincent Van GoghUnknown Artists
Author:Jack Freestone
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“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lampost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: "it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks." And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it. When I read this letter of Van Gogh's it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *acedemical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on. But the moment I read Van Gogh's letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh's little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care.”

ArtSimplicityDrawingVan GoghCreative Impulse
Book:If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit
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“It's probably for the best that Van Gogh isn't around to see his work selling for squillions of dollars, as he'd probably start painting for that market. He may have lost an ear, but he'd still have that magic eye and a new nose for a deal. We're denied access to this poor man's genius by having the richest people on earth hanging his life's work in their mansions.”

ArtCreativitySatireCritiqueSelling OutWealth InequalityVan GoghArtistic IntegrityArt MarketArt Accessibility
Author:Stewart Stafford
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“I keep hoping that I’ll come up with something. 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 that 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.”

LettersColorsVan Gogh
Book:The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
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“If there is anything I regret then it is that period when I allowed mystical and theological profundities to mislead me into withdrawing too much into myself. …..When you wake up in the morning and find you are not alone but can see a fellow creature there in the half-light, it makes the world look so much more welcoming. Much ,more welcoming than the devotional journals and whitewashed church walls beloved of clergymen.”

LoveLettersVan Gogh
Book:Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh - III vols
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“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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“It’s funny,” John says, “how piano keys are black and white, yet they play a thousand different colors.” “‘Cept there ain’t no piyana,” Captain Clark shushes. John’s face goes blank. “Really? I thought I heard one.” Captain Clark looks at me, almost apologetically. “He’s got Van Gogh’s ear fer music.”

ArtMusicYoung AdultPianoVan GoghZonkedAnna WileyFlash Mob
Book:Zonked Out: The Teen Psychologist of San Marcos Who Killed Her Santa Claus and Found the Blue-Black Edge of the Love Universe
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“And just as this illness changed his life, and hers, and Claudette's and their house on rue de l'Agneau, so it changed that old, cracked globe. It felt different in her hands--smaller. She'd hold it like an egg that could break under her touch. Because now Jeanne's mind could not be on future of foreign countries, it had to be on the cutting up of food, the emptying of chamber pots. Her life moved around her father, and loving him more closely--and how could she resent this?”

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Author:Susan Fletcher
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“I’m happy to just be able to come across things. I don’t need to be happy. Happiness is a kind of cheap word. Let’s face it, I’m not the kind of cat that’s going to cut off an ear if I can’t do something. I would commit suicide. I would shoot myself in the brain if things got bad. I would jump from a window…you know, I can think about death openly. It’s nothing to fear. It’s nothing sacred. I’ve seen so many people die. Life’s not sacred either”

HappinessSuicideHappyVan GoghVincent Van GoghFell De SeRobert Shelton
Book:The Essential Interviews
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“A real education will not teach you to compete; it will teach you to cooperate. It will not teach you to fight and come first. It will teach you to be creative, to be loving, to be blissful, without any comparison with the other.. A real education will not teach you to be the first. It will tell you to enjoy whatsoever you are doing, not for the result but for the act itself. Just like a painter or a dancer or a musician…. You can paint in two ways. You can paint to compete with other painters; you want to be the greatest painter in the world, you want to be a Picasso or a Van Gogh. Then your painting will be second-rate, because your mind is not interested in painting itself; it is interested in being the first, the greatest painter in the world. You are not going deep into the art of painting. You are not enjoying it, you are only using it as a stepping- stone. You are on an ego trip. And the problem is: to really be a painter, you have to drop the ego completely. To really be a painter, the ego has to be put aside. Only then can God flow through you. Only then can he use your hands and your fingers and your brush. Only then something of superb beauty can be born. It is never BY you but only THROUGH you. Existence flows; you become only a passage. You allow it to happen, that's all; you don't hinder, that's all. But if you are too interested in the result, the ultimate result - that you have to become famous, that you have to win the Nobel Prize, that you have to be the first painter in the world, that you have to defeat all other painters hitherto - then your interest is not in painting; painting is secondary. And of course, with a secondary interest in painting you can't paint something original; it will be ordinary. Ego cannot bring anything extraordinary into the world; the extraordinary comes only through egolessness. And so is the case with the musician and the poet and the dancer. And so is the case with everybody. In the Gita, Krishna says: Don't think of the result at all. It is a message of tremendous beauty and significance and truth. Don't think of the result at all. Just do what you are doing with your totality. Get lost into it. Lose the doer in the doing. Don't be - let your creative energies flow unhindered. That's why he said to Arjuna, "Don't escape from the war... because I can see this is just an ego trip, this escape. The way you are talking simply shows that you are calculating: that you are thinking that by escaping from the war you will become a great mahatma. Rather than surrendering to God, to the whole, you are taking yourself too seriously: as if, if you are not there, there will be no war." Krishna says to Arjuna, "Listen to me. Just be in a state of let-go. Say to God, 'Use me in whatsoever way you want to use me. Use me! I am available, unconditionally available.' Then whatsoever happens through you will have a great authenticity about it. It will have intensity, it will have depth. It will have the impact of the eternal on it. It will be signed by God, not by you. And you will rejoice because God has chosen you to be a vehicle.”

EnjoyCreativityEgoEducation SystemMahabharataVan GoghArjunaEgo TripLord KrishnaPicasso
Author:Osho
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“In the following days the twins went all over the city; they visited more museums, particularly the avant-garde ones. Whenever Magda spotted a Van Gogh her eyes would fill with tears, remembering the aberrational agony this great artist had gone through. The work that stirred her most was one of those many self-portraits of the artist in a sober and tormented mood; a painting built by many heavy brushstrokes of dense undiluted paint applied spirally giving the impression that the image was materializing from a turquoise background. Magda spent a full ten minutes before one such portrait. When she returned back to earth she noticed a young man beside her, as absorbed with the painting as she was and whose face looked familiar.”

FranceParis1960sArtsArtists LifeLouvreVan GoghVincent Van GoghMalteseMusée D Orsay
Book:Memories of Recurrent Echoes
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“« Siempre he creído que cuando un artista muestra su trabajo a la gente tiene el derecho de no hablar de su lucha en su propia vida, a menos que decida desahogarse con un amigo de confianza. […] el trabajo de un artista y su vida privada son como una mujer que acaba de dar a luz y su hijo. Puedes mirar a su hijo, pero no levantarás su camisón para ver si hay manchas de sangre. Sería un gesto poco cortés. » (Carta 211, La Haya, 11 de marzo de 1882)”

ArtistaVan GoghVincent Van GoghVida Personal
Book:Van Gogh y sus Cartas a Theo: Más allá de la Leyenda (Misterios De Van Gogh)
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“« Después de todo puede que mi vida (y quizá también la tuya) no sea tan buena como era, pero tampoco querría volver atrás, porque a través de los problemas y la adversidad veo que surgen cosas buenas, como la expresión de los sentimientos. » (Carta 235, La Haya, 3 de junio de 1882)”

SentimientosVan GoghProblemasVincent Van GoghExpresiónAdversidadExpresión ArtísticaExpresión Personal
Book:Van Gogh y sus Cartas a Theo: Más allá de la Leyenda (Misterios de Van Gogh nº 2)
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“« Es muy probable que vaya a sufrir más y la verdad, eso no me gusta. No deseo una vida de mártir bajo ninguna circunstancia. Siempre he buscado algo del heroísmo que no tengo. Admiro mucho a las personas que lo tienen, pero repito, no creo que sea mi deber ni mi ideal.» (Carta 764, Arlés, 28 de abril - 2 de mayo de 1889)”

SufrimientoVan GoghVincent Van Gogh
Book:Van Gogh y sus Cartas a Theo: Más allá de la Leyenda (Misterios de Van Gogh nº 2)
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“En Arlés vivió durante tres semanas a base de galletas náuticas, huevos y leche, porque era más importante tener dinero para pagar a sus modelos. Esto es tan sólo una muestra de lo que podemos encontrar en las cartas. El cansancio físico y la abnegación parecen haber sido los pilares sobre los que asentó su carrera. Creía firmemente que su carrera tenía un único fin: hacer buenas pinturas y dibujos.”

Van GoghPinturaVincent Van Gogh
Book:Van Gogh y sus Cartas a Theo: Más allá de la Leyenda (Misterios de Van Gogh nº 2)
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“« Para poder hacer algo en el mundo, hay que olvidarse de uno mismo (...) Los hombres no están en la tierra sólo para ser felices u honrados. Estamos en este mundo para hacer cosas por la sociedad, para ser nobles y para dejar atrás la simpleza en la que vivimos. » (Carta 33, Londres, 8 de mayo de 1875)”

SociedadFelicidadVan GoghAltruismoVincent Van Gogh
Book:Van Gogh y sus Cartas a Theo: Más allá de la Leyenda (Misterios de Van Gogh nº 2)
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“«Es verdad que es presuntuoso sentirse seguro del éxito de uno mismo. Uno puede pensar: mi lucha no será en vano, así que no pararé. A pesar de mis debilidades y fracasos, voy a luchar hasta el fin. No importa que caiga noventa y nueve o cien veces, ¡me levantaré! ¿Por qué hablan del significado de 'existencia' como si yo no lo supiera? ¿Qué artista no ha luchado y se ha dejado la piel? ¿Existe otra manera que no sea luchar y luchar para crearse un porvenir? ¿Desde cuándo alguien con la mano de un pintor no puede ganar dinero? » (Carta 187, Etten, 19 de noviembre de 1881)”

Van GoghVincent Van GoghResilencia
Book:Van Gogh y sus Cartas a Theo: Más allá de la Leyenda (Misterios de Van Gogh nº 2)
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“People are fond of spouting out the old cliché about how Van Gogh never sold a painting in his lifetime. Somehow his example serves to justify to us, decades later, that there is merit in utter failure. Perhaps, but the man did commit suicide. The market for his work took off big-time shortly after his death. Had he decided to stick around another few decades he most likely would’ve entered old age quite prosperous. And sadly for failures everywhere, the cliché would have lost a lot of its power. The fact is, the old clichés work for us in abstract terms, but they never work out in real life quite the same way. Life is messy; clichés are clean and tidy.”

ArtSuccessCreativityFailureClichésVan Gogh
Book:Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity
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“Zaista, zašto smo tako uvjereni da je Van Gogh opstao zahvaljujući svojoj genijalnosti, a pritom podcjenjujemo detalj, odsječeno uho? Po čemu vi pamtite živuće moderne umjetnike? Ima li ijednoga ili ijedne među njima koji nečime nisu skandalizirali javnost? Gdje je taj samozatajni skromni umjetnik, pokažite mi ga! Svi su umjetnici mitotvorci, samo jednima uspijeva da postanu slavni, a drugima ne.”

Van GoghUmjetnostUmjetnik
Book:Lisica
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“Consciousness is our gateway to experience: It enables us to recognize Van Gogh’s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven’s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine.”

ScienceConsciousnessBeautyExperienceAweVan GoghBeethovenVincent Van GoghLudwig Van Beethoven
Book:The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
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