Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on 30 March 1853. He was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art.
Not commercially successful, he struggled with severe depression and poverty, eventually leading to his suicide at age thirty-seven. He died on 29 July 1890.
37 Vincent Willem Van Gogh quotes on painting, art, nature, love and passion:
- Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.
2. 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.
3. Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
4. If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.
5. I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.
6. Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.
7. There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
8. Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.
9. I dream my painting and I paint my dream.
10. Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all.
11. What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.
12. I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?
13. What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
14. Art is to console those who are broken by life.
15. A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke
16. I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
17. 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.
18. I don’t know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream.
19. I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove.
20. I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.
21. The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
22. I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
23. At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.
24. The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too
25. If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.
26. I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly’.
27. How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
28. It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.
29. I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.
30. It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.
31. Painting is a faith, and it imposes the duty to disregard public opinion.
32. The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right.
33. Conscience is a man’s compass.”
34. I am still far from being what I want to be, but with God’s help I shall succeed.
35. If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things..
36. It is not the language of painters but the language of nature which one should listen to, the feeling for the things themselves, for reality is more important than the feeling for pictures.”
37. One must work and dare if one really wants to live.