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Bram van Velde
97 quotes
“I am in the void. Nothing to hang on to.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Waiting for the truth.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Van Gogh.. Fascinating. The fragility of that strong spirit.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There’s always doubt. There’s nothing you can get hold of.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each of my paintings is a cycle. It’s like existence, life. They are always in motion.. .If they were fixed and static, they would be false.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you get to the bottom, you discover that there is no room for pride. That’s what I paint.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, 28 December 1967; p. 69
“Painting doesn't interest me.. .What I paint is beyond painting.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am powerless, helpless. Each time it’s a leap in the dark. A deliberate encounter with the unknown.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t set out to speak a comprehensible language. But my language is authentic.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each painting contains so much suffering.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I look back to a recent painting, I can hardly bear th suffering in it.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each painting is linked to a fundamental drama.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have to try to see where seeing is no longer possible, where visibility is gone.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Yes, perhaps there is some enjoyment in it [his paintings] too, somewhere.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, 13 April 1968; p. 70
“It was truly revealing. The strength of the intervention, the intensity of colors and the happiness of this work, has never left me.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: article Schilder Bram van Velde in Dordrecht, by Paul Groot, newspaper NRC Handelsblad, 1979 (English translation: Charlotte Burgmans)
“Perhaps he [ Mondrian ] was too faithful to a single discovery. And perhaps that kind of painting was right for the period. But now peace and harmony are no longer possible. There is only anguish.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Van Gogh.. .In this world of petty calculations, he was too intense. He frightened people. They cast him out.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: two quotes, 16 July 1970; p. 77
“What makes a painting fascinating is its sincerity. Sincerity is such a rare thing. Most people don't dare to be sincere.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because it's an adventure out of all proportion. You have to devote all your strength to it and it's never enough.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: two short quotes, 24 August 1970; p. 78
“It is true that other people can help you, and to lasting effect.. .If I hadn't had Beckett in 1940 [in Paris, when Van Velde was strongly demoralized by the death of his wife], I'm not sure I could have stood it. I am really not sure.. .At that time he [Beckett] he was driven by an extremely aggressive and fiery Irish spirit. That has lessened as time has gone on.. .I don't know anywhere in modern art any more faithful or more impressive picture of contemporary humanity than the one he offers us in 'The Unamable'.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2 November 1970; p. 79
“I am well aware that a painting must inevitably be a bizarre, incomprehensible thing.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I start off on the canvas and, little by little, it imposes its own solution. But that solution is not easy to find.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A painting is not a battle against other people, but against oneself.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Painting, an oeuvre, is not such a big deal, it is so unimportant. But that’s precisely what makes it interesting.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t know if I've got close enough [in two recent paintings he made] to what I was really trying to achieve. But at least I've tried, I've made the attempt. I've done what I could. I've gone as far as my powers permitted.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, 2 November 1970; p. 81
“If these gouaches [Bram van Velde recently made] live at all, it is because they are true, they derive from life. They are born of the unknown – and not of habit or know-how, or intention, or of some recipe.. ..there comes a time when serious work is no longer an effort. When demanding work of that kind no longer tires you.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“However terrible it is, the thing never involves any sadness”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is important to see that my paintings are ultimately stimulating. They are not at all the kind of thing that inspires despair.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, 2 November 1971 pp. 84-85
“Painting is getting in touch with the truth. It's a matter of summoning up the vision I need.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are in an area where knowledge fails. Where you have to advance in ignorance, not even knowing where you are going.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real horror is mass production. Painting when there is no compulsion to do so… …Pictures like that are all unpunished crimes.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, 3 April 1972; p. 86
“When you are working, you are so far away and so absorbed, it's inevitable that you fall into a vacuum when you stop.. ..every time when I finish a painting, I always have to wait to get my strength back before I can begin another.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 3 April 1972; p. 90
“I am in a thousand pieces. Painting somehow makes me whole.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Painting lives only through the slide towards the unknown in oneself.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The world of architecture – and of works conceived for architecture – tends towards beauty. True beauty tends towards ugliness and panic.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, May 1972; p. 87
“I need to go towards the illogical. This world we live in destroys us. It is always governed by the same laws. You have to create images that don’t belong to it. That are totally different from those it presents us.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 11 August 1972; p. 90
“Mondrian.. .The constructivists?.. .They had certainties. They wanted a stable basis to work on, but I’m afraid that that was enormous arrogance on their part. Nothing is stable and no certainties are possible.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 11 August 1972; p. 90
“What the eye can see won't get us very far. And what it can see is so limited, so restricted. But a gouache or an oil painting can be seen at a glance, can take in a whole world at a single glance.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 11 August 1972; pp. 90-91
“Creating a painting is a matter of ensuring that all its parts achieve unity. Though it's a precarious, fragile unity.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Something is trying to come into the world. But I don’t know what it is. I never start by knowing. It's impossible to know. Truth is not knowledge.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greatest moment is when you realize that the painting you've just finished is nothing. When you manage to detach yourself from it.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think there is a degree of primitivism in what I do.. .You have to see without illusions. Without trying to protect yourself.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is only the present. A painting is an instant of time that has escaped oblivion.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel myself tied to life. To the immensity and complexity of life. Each painting is an impulse towards life.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1972 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: short quotes, 29 August 1972; pp. 92-93
“About Van Gogh.. a man who is on fire, a torch. His sincerity is absolute. His best painting is the grain field where he kills himself. There we find ourselves at the border of the art of painting. We cannot go further.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Je peins l'Impossibilité de peindre, by M. Nuridsany, newspaper Le Figaro, 24-10-1989, p. 35, as quoted in Bram van Velde, A Tribute, Municipal Museum De Lakenhal Leiden, Municipal Museum Schiedam, Museum de Wieger,…
“The real world with its common logic pushes us toward catastrophe. The artists seek in his work to free himself from this weight. Art is being transformed into politics, love into trade, education into an apparatus for stifling the mind. In the midst of such horrors, clearly only the dream within me has life. But how do other people live? -There is color, virginal expression - new, without a cage, without routine, without limit, a bath of sun and light. We must realize that nothing man does is of any value. The trouble is that people want to be paid. Only sick men can be artists. Their suffering pushes them into the accomplishment of deeds which reinvest the world with meaning. The sensitive man or the artist can only be a sick man in our civilized life, so full of lies. To think of art as a profession, how appealing! – Painting is man in the face of his downfall.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: Abstract Painting, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co., 1964, p. 134
“I met Beckett at my brother’s [ w:Geert van Velde, also an abstract painter] place. That was a Big meeting [circa 1938, in Paris], in capital letters. It was before war started, life was still normal. That time I was very lonely. We saw each other often. Before the war he had published already something, but his fame came in 1953. We never spoke about his work. He was a taciturn man. Sometimes a word escaped from his mouth. Sure, a word you would never forget. It would stick in your head... This friendship with Beckett is the most important experience in my life. He was fully alive for my way of working. What he could express in words, I did with my paintings.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: article "Schilder Bram van Velde in Dordrecht," in: NRC Handelsblad by Paul Groot, 1979 (English translation: Charlotte Burgmans)