Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh; 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter whose work had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. In just over a decade he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by symbolic colourisation and dramatic, impulsive and highly expressive paintwork. He sold only one painting during his lifetime and...
NationalityDutch
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth30 March 1853
CityZundert, Netherlands
What preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way?
I always dream a painting like that, with a group of lively figures of the pals.
For myself, I declare I don't know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream.
You have to first experience what you want to express
I want to paint what I feel, and feel what I paint.
How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines and ivy and hawthorn hedges; they have been with us from the very beginning.
We are surrounded by poetry on all sides...
Often whole days pass without my speaking to anyone.
There is nothing more beautiful than nature early in the morning.
Love a friend, love a wife, something, whatever you like, but one must love with a lofty and serious intimate sympathy, with strength, with intelligence, and one must always try to know deeper, better, and more.
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, thatit 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.
Love is eternal, the aspect may change, but not the essence.
But are not this struggle and even the mistakes one may make better, and do they not develop us more, than if we kept systematically away from emotions?
If we study Japanese art, we see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent, who spends his time doing what? He studies a single blade of grass.