Frasi di Vincent Van Gogh: 33 frasi di saggezza e ispirazione sull'arte, il successo e la scoperta di sé

Vincent Van Gogh: 271 frasi 279 Mi piace

Vincent Van Gogh frasi celebri

“Prima sogno i miei dipinti, poi dipingo i miei sogni.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“I pescatori sanno che il mare è pericoloso e la tempesta terribile, ma non hanno mai trovato questi pericoli, una ragione sufficiente per restare a riva.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“La tristezza durerà per sempre.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“Sii chiaramente consapevole delle stelle e dell'infinito in alto. Dopotutto, la vita sembra quasi incantata.”

Vincent Van Gogh

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“Cerco, mi sforzo, ci sono con tutto il cuore.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“… e poi, ho natura, arte e poesia, e se ciò non bastasse, cosa basta?”

Vincent Van Gogh

Frasi sulla vita di Vincent Van Gogh

“C'è fannullone e fannullone. C'è chi è fannullone per pigrizia o per mollezza di carattere, per la bassezza della sua natura, e tu puoi prendermi per uno di quelli. Poi c'è l'altro tipo di fannullone, il fannullone per forza, che è roso intimamente da un grande desiderio di azione, che non fa nulla perché è nell'impossibilità di fare qualcosa, perché gli manca ciò che gli è necessario per produrre, perché è come in una prigione, chiuso in qualche cosa, perché la fatalità delle circostanze lo ha ridotto a tal punto; non sempre uno sa quello che potrebbe fare, ma lo sente d'istinto: eppure sono buono a qualcosa, sento in me una ragione d'essere! So che potrei essere un uomo completamente diverso! A cosa potrei essere utile, a cosa potrei servire? C'è qualcosa in me, che è dunque? Questo è un tipo tutto diverso di fannullone, se vuoi puoi considerarmi tale. Un uccello chiuso in gabbia in primavera sa perfettamente che c'è qualcosa per cui egli è adatto, sa benissimo che c'è qualcosa da fare, ma che non può fare: che cosa è? Non se lo ricorda bene, ha delle idee vaghe e dice a se stesso: "gli altri fanno il nido e i loro piccoli e allevano la covata", e batte la testa contro le sbarre della gabbia. E la gabbia rimane chiusa e lui è pazzo di dolore. "Ecco un fannullone" dice un altro uccello che passa di là, "quello è come uno che vive di rendita". Intanto il prigioniero continua a vivere e non muore, nulla traspare di quello che prova, sta bene e il raggio di sole riesce a rallegrarlo. Ma arriva il tempo della migrazione. Accessi di malinconia – ma i ragazzi che lo curano nella sua gabbia si dicono che ha tutto ciò che può desiderare – ma lui sta a guardare fuori il cielo turgido carico di tempesta, e sente in sé la rivolta contro la propria fatalità. "Io sono in gabbia, sono in prigione, e non mi manca dunque niente imbecilli? Ho tutto ciò che mi serve! Ah, di grazia, la libertà, essere un uccello come tutti gli altri!". Quel tipo di fannullone è come quell'uccello fannullone. E gli uomini si trovano spesso nell'impossibilità di fare qualcosa, prigionieri di non so quale gabbia orribile, orribile, spaventosamente orribile… Non si sa sempre riconoscere che cosa è che ti rinchiude, che ti mura vivo, che sembra sotterrarti, eppure si sentono non so quali sbarre, quali muri. Tutto ciò è fantasia, immaginazione? Non credo, e poi uno si chiede "Mio Dio, durerà molto, durerà sempre, durerà per l'eternità?"”

Vincent Van Gogh

Sai tu ciò che fa sparire questa prigione? È un affetto profondo, serio. Essere amici, essere fratelli, amare spalanca la prigione per potere sovrano, per grazia potente. Ma chi non riesce ad avere questo rimane chiuso nella morte. Ma dove rinasce la simpatia, lì rinasce anche la vita.
Origine: Da Lettere a Theo, Guanda, Parma 1984, pp. 87-88.

“Bisogna aver sempre presente la meta da raggiungere e che la vittoria ottenuta dopo un'intera vita di laboriosa fatica vale più di un facile successo. Chiunque viva sinceramente e affronti senza piegarsi dolori e delusioni è assai più degno di chi ha sempre avuto il vento favorevole, non conoscendo altro che una relativa prosperità.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo, 3 aprile 1878.

“Siamo tanto attaccati a questa vecchia vita perché accanto ai momenti di tristezza, abbiamo anche momenti di gioia in cui anima e cuore esultano – come l'allodola che non può fare a meno di cantare al mattino, anche se l'anima talvolta trema in noi, piena di timori.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo, 30 maggio 1877.

“Soffrire senza lamentarci è l'unica lezione che dobbiamo imparare in questa vita.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Più divento dissipato, malato, vaso rotto, più io divento artista, creatore… con quanta minor fatica si sarebbe potuto vivere la vita, invece di fare dell'arte.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo, 29 luglio 1888; citato in Serena Zoli, Giovanni B. Cassano, E liberaci dal male oscuro, TEA, Milano, 2009, p. 478. ISBN 978-88-502-0209-6

“Una cosa resta – la fede – si sente istintivamente, ché moltissimo si cambia e che tutto si cambierà: siamo nell'ultimo quarto di un secolo che nuovamente finirà con una grandiosa rivoluzione. Ma anche supponendo che alla fine della nostra vita noi ne vedremo l'inizio, sicuramente non vedremo i tempi migliori dell'aria pura e del rinnovamento di tutta la società dopo questa grande tempesta.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh Frasi e Citazioni

“Faccio sempre ciò che non so fare, per imparare come va fatto.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Uno può avere un focolare ardente nell'anima e tuttavia nessuno viene mai a sedervisi accanto. I passanti vedono solo un filo di fumo che si alza dal camino e continuano per la loro strada.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Anima

“Aspiro alle stelle che non posso raggiungere.”

Vincent Van Gogh libro Lettere a Theo

Lettere a Theo

Stella

“Così come in algebra due affermazioni false ne danno una vera, così spero che il prodotto dei miei insuccessi si concluda con un successo.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Successo

“Se senti una voce dentro di te che dice 'non puoi dipingere', allora a tutti i costi dipingi e quella voce verrà messa a tacere.”

Vincent Van Gogh

motivazionale

“Io penso di vedere qualcosa di più profondo, più infinito, più eterno dell'oceano nell'espressione degli occhi di un bambino piccolo quando si sveglia alla mattina e mormora o ride perché vede il sole splendere sulla sua culla.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Sole , Sui bambini

“Così il pennello sta alle mie dita come l'archetto al violino, e assolutamente per mio piacere.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Sul piacere

“Non c'è blu senza il giallo e senza l'arancione.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Io penso spesso che la notte sia più viva e più riccamente colorata del giorno.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Notte

“Non posso cambiare il fatto che i miei quadri non vendono. Ma verrà il giorno in cui la gente riconoscerà che valgono più del valore dei colori usati nel quadro.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Non bisogna giudicare il buon Dio da questo mondo, perché è uno schizzo che gli è venuto male.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Citato in Guido Almansi, Il filosofo portatile, TEA, Milano, 1991.

Su Dio , Sul mondo , il male

“Volevo uccidermi, ma ho fatto cilecca. Nel caso dovessi sopravvivere ci riproverò.”

Vincent Van Gogh

“Non c'è bisogno che un artista sia un prete o un fabbriciere, ma certo egli deve avere un cuore affettuoso per gli altri uomini.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Cuore , Sugli uomini

“Non è tanto il linguaggio del pittore che si deve sentire, quanto quello della natura.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Natura

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“Ho messo il cuore e l'anima nel mio lavoro, e ho perso la testa nel processo.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Anima , Cuore

“Ho dunque schizzato i dieci "Travaux des champs" di Millet e ne ho eseguito uno a fondo. Inoltre ho disegnato dall'incisione l'"Angelus" che mi hai mandato.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo, 7 settembre 1880; citato in Fischer 1975.

“E' nostro dovere cercare di ammirare e conoscere le cose per noi stessi piuttosto che insegnarle agli altri. Eppure le due cose possono coesistere.”

Vincent Van Gogh libro Lettere a Theo

libro Lettere a Theo

“Vedi, l’uomo non ha amico più fedele del suo dovere e benché a volte possa essere un rude e severo docente, finché si lavora a servizio del dovere non si diventa facilmente dei falliti.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da Lettere a Theo (L’ Aia, giugno 1883) - Guanda, 2016.

“Se torni nello studio ti accorgerai subito, credo, che ho sempre avuto in mente il piano riguardante le figure di lavoratori in litografia, anche se non ne parlo tanto. Ho un seminatore, un mietitore, una lavandaia, una operaia di miniera, una sarta, uno che scava, una donna con la pala, l'orfana, un ragazzo con una carriola di letame e altro ancora.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Origine: Da una lettera al fratello Theo; citato in Fischer 1975.

Su Dio , Ragazza , Studia

Questa traduzione è in attesa di revisione. È corretto?

“Se senti una voce dentro di te che dice: "Non sei un pittore", allora con ogni mezzo dipingi, ragazzo, e quella voce sarà messa a tacere, ma solo lavorando. Colui che va alle tendenze e racconta i suoi problemi quando sente che perde parte della sua virilità, parte del meglio che c'è in lui; i tuoi amici possono essere solo quelli che lottano contro di loro, che aumentano la tua attività con il loro esempio di azione.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Problema , Ragazza

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“Cerco sempre di più di essere me stesso, preoccupandomi relativamente poco se le persone approvano o disapprovano.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Sulle persone

Vincent Van Gogh: Frasi in inglese

“I hope I have just had simply an artist's freak, and then a lot of fever after very considerable loss of blood, as an artery was severed, but my appetite came back at once. My digestion is all right, and so from day to day serenity returns to my brain.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, Jan. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 569), p 24
Vincent wrote this letter about two weeks after his first attack, during which he had cut off his ear
1880s, 1889

“If you saw the first painted color-studies that I made when I came here to Nuenen [1883] - and the present canvas [1885] - side by side - I think you'd see that as far as colour is concerned - things have livened up. I think that the question of the breaking of colours in the relationships of the colours will occupy you too one day. For as an art expert and critic, one must also, it seems to me - be sure of one's ground and have certain convictions. At least for one's own pleasure and to be able to give reasons, and at the same time one must be able to explain it in a few words to others, who sometimes turn to someone like you for enlightenment when they want to know something more about art.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 30 April 1885, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let497/letter.html
Vincent refers to his famous painting Eaters' https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Vincent_van_Gogh_-_The_potato_eaters_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg'Potato
1880s, 1885

“Ill as well, and I have not been brave. Then face to face with the suffering of these attacks I feel very frightened too.... All the same I know well that healing comes - if one is brave - from within through profound resignation to suffering and death, through the surrender of your own will and of your self-love. But that is no use to me, I love to paint, to see people and things and everything that makes our life - artificial - if you like.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, 10 Sept. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 605), p. 26
1880s, 1889

“.. 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..”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in a letter of Vincent to Theo, from The Hague (Netherlands), Summer 1882; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 228), p. 30
1880s, 1882

“Involuntarily and without any definite motive, I had a thought that often occurs to me. Not only did I begin drawing relatively late in life, but it may also be that I shall not live for so very many years to come… I think I may presume without rashness: that my body will keep a certain number of years "quand bien meme" - a certain number, say between six and ten years for instance… This is the period on which I reckon firmly.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, Summer 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 309), p 23
1880s, 1883

“What has changed is that my life then was less difficult and my future seemingly less gloomy, but as far as my inner self, my way of looking at things and of thinking is concerned, that has not changed. But if there has indeed been a change, then it is that I think, believe and love more seriously now what I thought, believed and loved even then.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)

“Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it, and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his Letter (no. 155), June 1880; published in the online version of http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let155/letter.html "Vincent van Gogh – The Letters; The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition"]. Retrieved 29 July 2014
Variants: One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way. // There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.
1880s, 1880

“Now I ask you whether you yourself have not often noticed that the policy of floating between the old and the new is not tenable? Just think this over. Sooner or later it ends with one's standing frankly either to the right or to the left.
It is no ditch, and I repeat, then it was '48 [the 1848 Revolutions in Europe, ] now it is '84 [1884]; then there was a barricade of paving stones - now it is not of stones, but a barricade as to the incompatibility of old and new.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, Autumn 1884; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 381) p. 38
1880s, 1884

“My dear Theo, Feeling, even a fine feeling, for the beauties of nature isn't the same as religious feeling, although I believe that the two are closely connected. The same is true of a feeling for art. Don't give in to that too much either. Hold fast especially to your love for the firm [of the Paris' art dealers Goupil & C0, where both brothers worked - Vincent started in 1869 and Theo in 1873] and for your work.... Nearly everyone has a feeling for nature, some more than others, but there are few who feel that God is a spirit, and that they must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Pa is one of the few, Ma too, and also Uncle Vincent, I believe.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

quote from his Letter #049 to Theo on 'religious feeling' (Paris, 17 Sept. 1875) http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let049/letter.html
1870s

“.. At the end of the month I should like to go to the hospital at St. Remy or another institution of this kind. What comforts me a little, is that I am beginning to consider madness as a disease like any other and accept the thing as such, whereas during the crises themselves, I thought that everything I imagined was real... After all... I have perhaps still some almost normal years in front of me.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 21 April 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 585), p 25
1880s, 1889

“.. Our life is a pilgrim's progress. I once saw a very beautiful picture: it was a landscape at evening. In the distance on the right-hand side a row of hills appeared blue in the evening mist. Above those hills the splendour of the sunset, the grey clouds with their linings of silver and gold and purple. The landscape is a plain or heath covered with grass and its yellow leaves, for it was in autumn. Through the landscape a road leads to a high mountain far, far away, on the top of that mountain is a city wherein the setting sun casts a glory. On the road walks a pilgrim, staff in hand. He has been walking for a good long while already and he is very tired. And now he meets a woman, or figure in black, that makes one think of St. Paul's word: As being sorrowful yet always rejoicing. That Angel of God has been placed there to encourage the pilgrims and to answer their questions and the pilgrim asks her: Does the road go uphill then all the way? And the answer is: "Yes to the very end."”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote of Vincent van Gogh, from his 'First Sunday Sermon' http://www.vggallery.com/misc/archives/sermon.htm: 'I Am a Stranger on the Earth..'; 29 October 1876
1870s

“.. The thought crossed my mind, how society today in its fall, at moments seen against the light of a renewal, stands out as a large, gloomy silhouette. Yes, for me, the drama of storm in nature, the drama of sorrow in life, is the most impressive.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands, Summer 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 319) p. 21
1880s, 1883

“.. Here I am shut up for the livelong day under lock and key and with keepers in a cell.... I will not deny that I would rather have died than have caused and suffered such trouble.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 9 March. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 579), p 25
1880s, 1889

“Boughton together with Abbey are making for Harper in New York drawings called "Picturesque Holland".... now I say to myself if the Graphic and Harper send their draughtsmen to Holland they would perhaps not be unwilling to accept a draughtsman from Holland [Vincent himself], if he can furnish some good work for not too much money. I should prefer to be accepted on regular monthly wages rather than to sell a drawing now and then at a relatively high price.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

“There is a saying by Gustave Dore which I have always admired: "J'ai la patience d'un boeuf." [I have the patience of an ox]. I find in it a certain goodness, a certain resolute honesty, more, it has a deep meaning that saying, it is the word of a real artist. When one thinks of the men from whose heart such a saying sprang, all the arguments one too often hears of art dealers about "natural gifts", seem to become a terrible raven's croaking.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Autumn 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 336) p. 34
1880s, 1883

“What surprising fellows those French painters are. A Millet, Delacroix, Corot, Troyon, Daubigny, Rousseau, and a Daumier.... Something else about Delacroix - he had a discussion with a friend about the question of working absolutely from nature, and said on that occasion that one should take one's 'studies' from nature - but that the 'actual painting' had to be made 'by heart'. This friend was walking along the boulevard when they had this discussion - which was already fairly heated. When they parted the other man was still not entirely persuaded. After they parted, Delacroix let him stroll on for a bit - then (making a trumpet of his two hands) bellowed after him in the middle of the street - to the consternation of the worthy passers-by:
'By heart! By heart!”

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Vincent Van Gogh

(Par coeur! Par coeur!)
I can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading this article and some other things about Delacroix..
In his letter to Anthon van Rappard, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, 8 and c. 15 August 1885 - original manuscript, letter 526, at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. nos. b8390 V/2006, http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let526/letter.html
See for this anecdote, taken from Charles Blanc, Les artistes de mon temps, letter 496, n. 7.
1880s, 1885

“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.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in a letter of Vincent to brother Theo, from The Hague, between c. 13 and c. 18 December 1882; as cited in Dear Theo: the Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh; ed. Irving Stone and Jean Stone, (1995) p. 181 - ISBN 0452275040
1880s, 1882

“.. Now there is in the South of Belgium, in Hainault, in the neighborhood of Mons.... a district called the Borinage, that has a peculiar population of laborers who work in the numerous coal mines... I should very much like to go there as an evangelist.... St. Paul was three years in Arabia before he began to preach..”

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Vincent Van Gogh

In his letter to brother Theo, from Laeken, near Brussels, 15 Nov. 1878, (letter 126); as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 18
1870s

“Now for the past five years or so, I don't know how long exactly, I have been more or less without permanent employment, wandering from pillar to post. You will say, ever since such and such a time you have been going downhill, you have been feeble, you have done nothing. Is that entirely true?”

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Vincent Van Gogh

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)

“Text: Psalm 119:19. I am a stranger on the earth, hide not Thy command ments from me.
Are we what we dreamt we should be? No, but still the sorrows of life..., so much more numerous than we expected, the tossing to and fro in the world, they have covered it over, but it is not dead, it sleepeth.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote from van Gogh's first sermon, 29 October, 1876; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 18
1870s

“Some time ago I saw a painting by Thijs Maris [= Matthijs Maris, one of the three brothers Maris, all three famous Dutch impressionist painters of the Hague School ] that reminded me of it. An old Dutch town with rows of brownish red houses with step-gables and tall flights of steps, grey roofs, and white or yellow doors, window-frames and cornices; canals with ships and a large white drawbridge, a barge with a man at the tiller going under it... Some distance away a stone bridge over the canal, with people and a cart with white horses crossing it. And everywhere movement, a porter with his wheelbarrow, a man leaning against the railing, gazing into the water, women in black with white caps... A greyish white sky over everything…”

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Vincent Van Gogh

quote from Vincent's Letter #031 to Theo van Gogh (London, 6 April 1875) http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let031/letter.html
1870s

“My intention is to make in Drenthe so much progress in painting that when I come back I may be qualified for the 'Society of Draughtsmen' [a group of London illustrators]. This stands again in connection with the second plan of going to England”

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Vincent Van Gogh

to become an illustrator
Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands, Summer 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 319) p. 21
1880s, 1883

“Oh, Theo, why should I change - I used to be very passive and very gentle and quiet — I'm that no longer, but then I'm no longer a child either now - sometimes I feel my own man.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

1880s, 1884, Letter to Theo (Nuenen, Oct. 1884)

“.. I went to live in my studio on the first of May [? ]... I have not had a hot dinner more than perhaps six or seven times since. I have lived then and I do so here, not having money for dinner, because the work costs me too much and I have trusted too much on my being strong enough to hold out. Now I have made it worse by smoking a great deal, which I do the more because then one does not feel an empty stomach so much... My opinion is that one must not think that the people whose health is damaged, quite or partly, are no good for painting... It fell so unexpectedly on me, I had been feeling weak and feverish, but I went on notwithstanding, but I began to feel worried when more and more teeth broke off, and I began to look more and more ill.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo from Antwerp, Belgium, Febr. 1886; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 449), p 24
1880s, 1886

“.. How glad I was when this doctor took me for an ordinary workingman and said: "I suppose you are an iron worker." That is just what I have tried to change in myself; when I was younger, I looked like one who has been intellectually overwrought, and now I look like a skipper or an iron worker.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Antwerp, Belgium, 28 Dec. 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 442) p. 22
1880s, 1885

“.. I am always between two currents of thought, first the material difficulties, turning round and round to make a living; and second, study of color. I am always in hope of making a discovery there, to express the love of two lovers by a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones. To express the thought of a brow by the radiance of a light tone against a sombre background. To express hope by some star, the eagerness of a soul by a sunset radiance. Certainly there is nothing in that of stereoscopic realism, but is it not some thing that actually exists?”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, September 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 531) p. 22
1880s, 1888

“Believe me, I work, I drudge, I grind all day long and I do so with pleasure, but I should get very much discouraged if I could not go on working as hard or even harder... I feel, Theo, that there is a power within me, and I do what I can to bring it out and free it. It is hard enough, all the worry and bother with my drawings, and if I had too many other cares and could not pay the models I should lose my head.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

quote in his letter to brother Theo, from The Hague, The Netherlands in Jan. 1882; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 20 (letter 171)
1880s, 1882

“Formerly I felt repulsion for these creatures, and it was a harrowing thought for me to reflect that so many of our profession, Troyon, Marchal, Meryon, Jundt, M. Maris, Monticelli [all painter-artists], and heaps more had ended like this.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, 25 May 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 592), p 25
1880s, 1889

“. I have done well to come here [to the hospital of Saint-Remy, ] first of all that by seeing the actual truth about the life of the various madmen and lunatics in this menagerie I am losing the vague dread, the fear of the thing.”

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Vincent Van Gogh

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, May 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 591), p 25
1880s, 1889