Great Throughts Treasury

"I had a new idea in my head... this time it's just simply my bedroom, only here color is to do everything, and, giving by its simplification a grander style to things, is to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In a word, to look at the picture ought to rest the brain or rather the imagination."

"I feel the need of relations and friendship, of affection, of friendly intercourse... I cannot miss these things without feeling, as does any other intelligent man, a void and a deep need."

"I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."

"I have a terrible need of – dare I say the word? – religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars."

"I have drawn into myself so much that I literally do not see any other people anymore-- excepting the peasants with whom I have direct contact, since I paint them."

"I have not yet had enough experience with women. What we were taught about them in our youth is quite wrong, that is sure, it was quite contrary to nature, and one must try to learn from experience. It would be very pleasant if everybody were good, and the world were good, etc. — yes — but it seems to me that we see more and more that we are not good, no more than the world in general, of which we are an atom — and the world no more good than we are. One may try one’s best, or act carelessly, the result is always different from what one really wanted. But whether the result be better or worse, fortunate or unfortunate, it is better to do something than to do nothing. If only one is wary of becoming a prim, self-righteous prig — as Uncle Vincent calls it — one may be even as good as one likes."

"I have often neglected my appearance. I admit it, and I also admit that it is shocking. But look here, lack of money and poverty have something to do with it too, as well as a profound disillusionment, and besides, it is sometimes a good way of ensuring the solitude you need, of concentrating more or less on whatever study you are immersed in."

"I have played hell somewhat with the truthfulness of the colors."

"I have walked this earth for 30 years, and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir."

"I know for sure that I have an instinct for color, and that it will come to me more and more, that painting is in the very marrow of my bones."

"I lost my job as an art salesman. It was the customer's fault. He wanted to buy the wrong paintings."

"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."

"I hope I shall be able to make some drawings in which there is something human."

"I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of stars makes me dream."

"I painted two pictures of myself lately, one of which has rather the true character... I always think photographs abominable, and I don't like to have them around, particularly not those of persons I know and love... photographic portraits wither much sooner than we ourselves do, whereas the painted portrait is a thing which is felt, done with love or respect for the human being that is portrayed."

"I myself believe that there is in every painter's life a period of making absurdities. In my case I think that period is already long past."

"I never get tired of the blue sky."

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day."

"I retain from nature a certain sequence and a certain correctness in placing the tones; I study nature, so as not to do foolish things, to remain reasonable. However, I don't mind so much whether my color corresponds exactly, as long as it looks beautiful on my canvas, as beautiful as it looks in nature."

"I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process."

"I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners."

"I shouldn't precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice, but once such a thing has taken hold of you, you can't very well get out of it."

"I sometimes think there is nothing so delightful as drawing."

"I see more and more that my work goes infinitely better when I am properly fed, and the paints are there, and the studio and all that. But have I set my heart on my work being a success? A thousand times no. I wish I could manage to make you really understand that when you give money to artists, you are yourself doing an artist's work, and that I only want my pictures to be of such a quality that you will not be too dissatisfied with your work."

"I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm — but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity. Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can't do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all. Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, defiles — they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians."

"I tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to"

"I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."

"I think it better to scrape off with the knife a part that is wrong, and to begin anew, than to make too many corrections."

"I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, the inner, moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God, and everything that is bad and evil in the works of men and in men is not from God, and God does not approve of it."

"I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove."

"I think that I still have it in my heart someday to paint a bookshop with the front yellow and pink in the evening...like a light in the midst of the darkness."

"I want to paint men and women with that something of the external which the halo used to symbolize, and which we now seek to give by the actual radiance and vibrancy of our colorings."

"I tried to express through red and green the terrible passions of humanity."

"I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say "he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.""

"I want to do drawings which touch people...In figure or landscape I should wish to express, not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow."

"I wanted to make people think of a totally different way of living from that which we, educated people, live. I would absolutely not want anyone to find it beautiful or good without a thought."

"I will not live without love."

"I wish they would only take me as I am."

"I was struck by how firmly the slender trunks stood in the ground - I began them using a brush, but because of the ground, which was already imparted, one brushstroke simply disappeared."

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

"I work even in the middle of the day, in the full sunshine, and I enjoy it like a cicada."

"If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?"

"I would rather die of passion than of boredom."

"If I were to think of and dwell on disastrous possibilities, I could do nothing. I throw myself headlong into my work, and come up again with my studies; if the storm within gets too loud, I take a glass too much to stun myself."

"If one keeps loving faithfully what is really worth loving, and does not waste one's love on insignificant and unworthy and meaningless things, one will get more light by and by and grow stronger. Sometimes it is well to go into the world and converse with people, and at times one is obliged to do so, but he who would prefer to be quietly alone with his work, and who wants but very few friends, will go safest through the world and among people. And even in the most refined circles and with the best surroundings and circumstances, one must keep something of the original character of an anchorite, for otherwise one has no root in oneself; one must never let the fire go out in one's soul, but keep it burning. And whoever chooses poverty for himself and loves it possesses a great treasure, and will always clearly hear the voice of his conscience; he who hears and obeys that voice, which is the best gift of God, finds at least a friend in it, and is never alone."

"If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning."

"If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere."

"If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle."

"If one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm -- but that's a lie... That way lies stagnation, mediocrity."

"If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done."