We need the crazy ones. The turpentine-tasting ear-choppers. The untamed nutcases that just don’t fit in with everyone else. We need these weird people whose eyes see things differently. The ones who see *through* the surfaces to the depths. They protect us from our own monotony, and force us to notice that life is a miracle.
Happy birthday, Vincent.
Clik here to view.
“There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
“I put my heart and soul into my work,
and I have lost my mind in the process.”
Clik here to view.
“I don’t know anything with certainty, but seeing the stars makes me dream.”
“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.”
Clik here to view.
“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.”
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?”
Clik here to view.
“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”
“…and then,
I have nature and art and poetry,
and if that is not enough,
what is enough?”
Clik here to view.
“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.”
“Normality is a paved road:
It’s comfortable to walk,
but no flowers grow on it.”
Clik here to view.
“It always strikes me, and it is very peculiar, that, whenever we see the image of indescribable and unutterable desolation—of loneliness, poverty, and misery, the end and extreme of things—the thought of God comes into one’s mind.”
“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 mesmerizes 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.”
Clik here to view.
![“La tristesse durera toujours.[The sadness will last forever.]”](http://www.rodalena.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/portrait-of-an-old-man-with-beard.jpg?w=640)
“La tristesse durera toujours.
[The sadness will last forever.]”
“When I have a terrible need of
- shall I say the word -
religion,
then I go out and paint the stars.”
Clik here to view.
“In spite of everything, I shall rise again; I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.”
“To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life.”