Vincent Van Gogh Zitate: 36 Zitate für Inspiration, Trost und Einblicke in den Geist eines brillianten Künstlers

Vincent Van Gogh: 274 Zitate 163 Gefällt mir

Vincent Van Gogh Berühmte Zitate

„Das Herz des Menschen ist sehr ähnlich wie das Meer, es hat seine Stürme, es hat seine Gezeiten und in seinen Tiefen hat es auch seine Perlen“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Wenn man die Natur wahrhaft liebt, wird man überall Schönheit finden.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Ich träume von meinem Bild und dann male ich meinen Traum.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Ich bin immer noch weit von dem entfernt, was ich sein möchte, aber mit Gottes Hilfe habe ich Erfolg.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Große Dinge entstehen durch eine Reihe kleiner Dinge die zusammen kommen.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Die Normalität ist eine gepflasterte Straße: man kann gut darauf gehen - doch es wachsen keine Blumen auf ihr.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Zitate über Leben von Vincent Van Gogh

„Was wäre das Leben, hätten wir nicht den Mut, etwas zu riskieren?“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Sei dir der Sterne und der Unendlichkeit in der Höhe klar bewusst. Dann scheint das Leben doch fast verzaubert zu sein.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Kunst soll diejenigen trösten, die vom Leben zerbrochen sind.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Es ist gut, so ein Buch wieder zu lesen, um gewisse Gefühle lebendig zu halten.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Briefe

„Und meine eigene Arbeit, nun, ich setze mein Leben dabei aufs Spiel, und mein Verstand ist zur Hälfte dabei draufgegangen […].“

Vincent Van Gogh

letzter Brief an seinen Bruder Theo van Gogh, 23. Juli 1890, Brief 652

„Nur vor der Staffelei beim Malen fühle ich ein wenig Leben.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Brief an seine Schwester Wilhelmina Jacoba van Gogh, September 1889, zitiert nach Matthias Arnold: Vincent van Gogh: Biographie, München (Kindler-Verlag) 1993, ISBN 3-463-40205-X
Original franz.: "Ce n’est que devant le chevalet en peignant que je sens un peu de vie." - an Willemien van Gogh. Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, 19. September 1889, vangoghletters.org http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let804/letter.html

Zitate über Herz von Vincent Van Gogh

„Ich habe mein Herz und meine Seele in meine Arbeit gesteckt und dabei meinen Verstand verloren.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Ich suche, ich strebe, ich bin mit meinem ganzen Herzen dabei.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Ich möchte Bündigeres, Einfacheres, Ernsteres, ich möchte mehr Seele und mehr Liebe und mehr Herz.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Briefe

„Mein Herz ist wie das Meer // Hat Sturm und Ebb und Fluth // Auch Perlen findest du tief // Nur tief in mein Gemuth.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Antwerpener Skizzenbuch, zitiert nach Mark Edo Tralbaut: Vincent van Gogh in zijn Antwerpsche periode, Amsterdam 1948, p. 44 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=MbNBAQAAIAAJ&q=afb.%20iv, books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=MbNBAQAAIAAJ&q=gemuth. Der im Original deutschsprachige Text ist offensichtlich die Paraphrasierung einer Strophe aus Heinrich Heines "Buch der Lieder" (1827) S. 186 de.wikisource https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Du_sch%C3%B6nes_Fischerm%C3%A4dchen,

Vincent Van Gogh Zitate und Sprüche

„Ich wünschte, sie würden mich so annehmen, wie ich bin.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Je mehr man liebt, um so tätiger wird man sein.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Brief an Anthon G.A. Ritter van Rappard, Mai 1883
Original niederl.: "Hoe meer men lief heeft hoe meer men handelen zal [geloof ik, want liefde die enkel een gevoel zou wezen die zou ’k niet eens onder de liefde willen rekenen]." - an Anthon van Rappard. Den Haag, etwa 21. Mai 1883, vangoghletters.org http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let345/letter.html

„Es ist gut, viele Dinge zu lieben, denn darin liegt die wahre Stärke, und wer viel liebt, leistet viel und kann viel bewirken, und was in Liebe getan wird, ist gut getan.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Über Liebe , Stark

„Ich in meiner Geisteskrankheit, ich denke an so viele andere Künstler, die auch geistig erkrankt waren, und ich sage mir, dass dies kein Hindernis ist, den Beruf des Malers auszuüben.“

Vincent Van Gogh

6. September 1889 in Saint-Rémy, zitiert nach Matthias Arnold: Vincent van Gogh: Biographie, München (Kindler-Verlag) 1993, ISBN 3-463-40205-X

Denken

„… und dann habe ich Natur und Kunst und Dichtung, und wenn das nicht genug ist, was ist genug?“

Vincent Van Gogh

Über natur , Über Kunst

„Recht und Falsch existieren nicht getrennt, sondern wie Schwarz und Weiß in der Natur.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Briefe

Über natur

„Ich fühle mich lebendig nur, wenn ich male.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Gefühl

„Eines Tages bringt uns der Tod zu einem anderen Stern.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Über Tod

„Es ist ebenso interessant und schwer, etwas gut zu sagen, wie es gut zu malen ist.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Briefe

Schwester

„Es sind Harmonien und Kontraste in den Farben verborgen, die ganz von selbst zusammenwirken.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Briefe

Farbe

„Ich wollte, man würde einsehen, dass die Grenzen des Mitleids nicht dort liegen, wo die Welt sie zieht.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Briefe

Über Ehe

„Wandlung ist notwendig wie die Erneuerung der Blätter im Frühling.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Briefe

Frühling

„Ich versuche immer mehr, ich selbst zu sein, und kümmere mich relativ wenig darum, ob die Leute zustimmen oder ablehnen.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Mit einem Bild möchte ich etwas Tröstliches sagen, so wie Musik tröstlich ist.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Brief an Theo van Gogh. Arles, 3. September 1888
Original franz.: "Et dans un tableau je voudrais dire quelque chose de consolant comme une musique." - vangoghletters.org http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let673/letter.html

Über Musik

„Ich wäre sehr froh, wenn Du in mir doch etwas anderes sehen könntest als eine Art Nichtstuer.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Gib ihnen vielleicht die 'Sternennacht'. […] Denn das sind zwei Bilder mit entgegengesetzten Farben.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Brief vom 21. Mai 1889 aus Saint-Rémy an seinen Bruder Theo van Gogh, zitiert nach Matthias Arnold: Vincent van Gogh: Biographie, München (Kindler-Verlag) 1993, ISBN 3-463-40205-X

Farbe

„Die Traurigkeit wird für immer andauern.“

Vincent Van Gogh

„Ich komme immer mehr zu der Überzeugung, dass man den lieben Gott nicht nach unserer Welt beurteilen darf, denn das ist eine Studie, die ihm misslungen ist. […] unsere Welt ist offenbar in Eile hingesudelt in einer jener schlechten Stunden, wo der Schaffende nicht mehr wusste, was er machte, oder den Kopf verloren hatte. […] Nur Meister können sich derart täuschen, das ist vielleicht der beste Trost, denn man darf ja hoffen zu sehen, wie er mit derselben schöpferischen Hand die Scharte auswetzt.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Brief an Theo van Gogh. Arles 26. Mai 1888. Sämtliche Briefe. Henschel-Verlag Berlin 1965. Deutsch von Eva Schumann. Band 4 (von 6) S. 44 f. Hier nach: Renate Siefert, 2012,
(Original franz.: "Je crois de plus en plus qu’il ne faut pas juger le bon Dieu sur ce monde ci car c’est une étude de lui qui est mal venue. [...] Ce monde ci est évidemment baclé à la hâte dans un de ces mauvais moments où l’auteur ne savait plus ce qu’il faisait, où il n’avait plus la tête à lui. [...] Il n’y a que les maîtres pour se tromper ainsi, voila peutêtre la meilleure consolation vu que dès lors on est en droit d’espérer voir prendre sa revanche par la même main creatrice." - vangoghletters.org http://vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let613/letter.html
Seit etwa 2001 von Harald Lesch in folgender Verkürzung popularisiert: „Man sollte Gott nicht nach dieser Welt beurteilen, die ist nur eine Studie, die nicht gelungen ist. Aber es muss ein Meister sein, der solche Schnitzer macht!“ - www.astronomie.de http://www.astronomie.de/bibliothek/interviews/professor-harald-lesch-2001/ und )

Über Liebe , Über Gott , Studie , Über die Welt

„Die Fischer wissen, dass das Meer gefährlich und der Sturm schrecklich ist, aber sie haben diese Gefahren nie als ausreichenden Grund gefunden, an Land zu bleiben.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Wissen , Meer , Land , Fisch

„Wenn ich mir jetzt meinen Zustand überlege und dabei hoffen darf, zwischen den Krisen - denn unglücklicherweise ist zu befürchten, dass sie von Zeit zu Zeit wiederkehren -, […] Perioden der Klarheit und der Arbeit zu haben.“

Vincent Van Gogh

Anfang September 1889 in Saint-Rémy, zitiert nach Matthias Arnold: Vincent van Gogh: Biographie, München (Kindler-Verlag) 1993, ISBN 3-463-40205-X

Über Glück , Zeit

Vincent Van Gogh: Zitate auf Englisch

“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