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Vincent van Gogh

163 quotes

“Do you know what I long for sometimes? To make a trip to Brabant. I should love to draw the old churchyard at Nuenen, and the weavers. To make, for instance, during a month, studies of Brabant, and to come back [to The Hague] with a lot of them, for a large drawing of a peasant funeral for instance.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of letter 295, from The Hague, 1883; as cited in Vincent van Gogh, Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, catalog-page: Dutch Period 2. - Weaver
“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 [to become an illustrator].”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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, (letter 319) p. 21
“..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.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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, (letter 319) p. 21
“I tell you, brother, I am not good from a clergyman's point of view. I know full well that, frankly speaking, prostitutes are bad, but I feel something human in them which makes me feel not the least scruple to associate with them; I see nothing very wrong in them.. .And now, as in other periods of decline of civilization, the corruption of society has turned upside down all relations of good and evil, and one falls back logically on the old saying: "The first shall be last and the last shall be first".”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Sept. 1883; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935], (letter 326) p. 38
“As I feel a need to speak out frankly, I cannot hide from you that I am overcome by a feeling of great care, depression, a "je ne sais quoi" of discouragement and despair more than I can tell. I take it so much to heart that I do not get on better with people in general; it quite worries me because on it depends so much my success in carrying out my work.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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], (letter 328) p. 21
“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.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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], (letter 336) p. 34
“If you hear a voice within you saying, "You are not a painter," then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced, but only by working. He who goes to trends and tells his troubles when he feels like that loses part of his manliness, part of the best that's in him; your friends can only be those who themselves struggle against it, who raise your activity by their own example of action.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Oct. 1883, 'Van Gogh's Letters',
“And my aim in my life is to make picture and drawings, as many and as well as I can, then, at the end of my life, I hope to pass away, looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking: "Oh, pictures I might have made!" Theo, I declare I prefer to think how arms, legs, head are attached to the trunk, rather than whether I myself am or am not more or less an artist.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1883 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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], (letter 338) p. 21
“I am busy painting every day studies of the weavers here, which I think are technically better than the painted studies from Drenthe, which I sent you.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Letter 355, from Nuenen The Netherlands, January 1884; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, page: Catalog: Dutch Period 2. - Weaver
“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.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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, (letter 381) p. 38
“Le financier est la désolation de l’artiste.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1884 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo Van Gogh, 10 December 1884
“You will say that I am not a success - vaincre or être vaincu, [to conquer or to be conquered], it doesn't matter to me, one has feeling and movement in any event, and they are more akin than they may seem to be or than can be put into words.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh, I am no friend of present-day Christianity, though its Founder was sublime - I have seen through present-day Christianity only too well. That icy coldness hypnotized even me, in my youth - but I have taken my revenge since then. How? By worshipping the love which they, the theologians, call sin, by respecting a whore [ Sien in The Hague ]), etc., and not too many would-be respectable, pious ladies. To some, woman is heresy and diabolical. To me she is just the opposite.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) said by 1890 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I repeat, let us paint as much as we can and be productive, and be ourselves with all our faults and qualities; I say us, because the money from you [Theo], which I know costs you trouble enough to procure me, gives you the right, when there is some good in my work, to consider half of it your creation.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, Spring 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, p. 7 (letter 399)
“When I call myself a peasant painter, that is a real fact, and it will become more and more clear to you in the future, I feel at home there. By witnessing peasant life continually at all hours of the day I have become so absorbed in it that I hardly ever think of anything else.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo from Nuenen, The Netherlands, Summer 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 400) p. 21
“I hope.. ..to paint some in a lighter gamut, more flesh and blood, but, at the same time, I am trying to get a still stronger soft soap and copper-like effect. In reality I daily see, in the gloomy huts, effects against the light or in the evening twilight.. ..which I compare to soft soap and brass color of a worn-out 10 centime piece.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, June 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 410) p. 31
“The work in question, painting the peasants, is such laborious work that the extremely weak would never even embark on it. And I have at least embarked on it.. .And I've grasped some solid and useful things in drawing and in painting, more firmly than you think, my dear friend. But I keep on making what I can't do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.. .We have in common with each other that we seek our subjects in the heart of the people, and then we have in common a need — either as an objective or as a means — to take our studies from reality.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to Anthon van Rappard, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, September 1885, in 'Van Gogh Letters'
“But tell me, black and white, may they be used or not, are they forbidden fruit? You . . . think that when the shadows are dark, ay, black, that it is all wrong then, don't you? I don't think so.. .Rembrandt and Hals, didn't they use black? And Velasquez???”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, Autumn 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 428) p. 31
“It is hard, terribly hard, to keep on working when one does not sell, and one literally has to pay for one's colors from what would not be too much for eating, drinking and lodgings, calculated ever so strictly. And then, besides, the models.. .All the same they are building State museums, and the like, for hundreds of thousands, but meanwhile, the artists can go to the dogs.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter, from Antwerp, Belgium, Dec. 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 438) p. 35
“..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.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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], (letter 442) p. 22
“This one thing remains: faith; one feels instinctively that many things are changing and that everything will change. We are living in the last quarter of a century which will end again in an enormous revolution.. ..we shall certainly not live to see the better times of pure air and the refreshing of the old society after those big storms. We are still in the closeness but the following generations will be able to breathe in freely.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Antwerp Belgium, Winter 1886; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 451), p. 38
“As well as the greatest optimist I see the lark soaring in the spring air, but I also see a young girl of about twenty, who might have been in good health, a victim to consumption, and who will perhaps drown herself before she dies of an illness. If one is always in respectable company among rather well-to-do bourgeois one does not notice this so much perhaps, but if one has dined for years on 'la vache enragee', as I did, one cannot deny that great misery is a fact that weighs down the scale.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Antwerp Belgium, Winter 1886; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 453), p. 38
“Don't be cross with me that I've come all of a sudden [to move from Antwerp to Paris]. I've thought about it so much and I think we'll save time this way. Will be at the Louvre from midday, or earlier if you like. A reply, please, to let me know when you could come to the Salle Carrée. As for expenses, I repeat, it comes to the same thing. I have some money left, that goes without saying, and I want to talk to you before spending anything.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to Theo van Gogh, from Paris, on or about Sunday, 28 February 1886; from original text of letter 567 - vangoghletters online
“And at times already I feel old and broken.. .To succeed one must have ambition, and ambition seems to me absurd. What will come of it I don't know ; I would like above all things to be less of a burden to you.. .I hope to make such progress that you will be able to show my stuff boldly without compromising yourself. And then I will take myself off somewhere down south, to get away from the sight of so many painters that disgust me as men.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from environment of Paris, Summer 1887; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 462) p. 22
“It seems to me almost impossible to work in Paris [he just left Paris] unless one has some place of retreat where one can revive oneself and get back one's tranquility and poise. Without that one would get hopelessly brutalized.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, 21 Feb. 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh] (letter 463), p. 28, ed., [[w:Alfred H. Barr Jr.|Alfred H. Barr], Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935.
“I am not working for myself alone, I believe in the absolute necessity for a new art of color, of design, and - of the artistic life..”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Spring 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 469) p. 22
“Of all the colors I ordered: the three chromes, the Prussian blue, the emerald, the crimson lakes, the malachite green, all the orange lead, hardly one of them is to be found on the Dutch palette, in Maris, in Mauve or Israels - [all contemporaries of Vincent, Dutch painters of the Hague School.]”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Spring 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 476), p 31
“I was certainly going the right way for a stroke when I left Paris. I paid for it nicely afterwards! When I stopped drinking, when I stopped smoking so much, when I began again to think instead of trying not to think - good Lord, the depression and the prostration of it! Work in these magnificent natural surroundings [of Arles ] has helped my morale.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, 4 May 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 481), p 24
“..You know that I think a society of impressionists would be a good thing of the same nature as the Society of the Twelve English Pre-Raphaelites, and I think that it could come into existence. Then I incline to think that the artists would guarantee mutually among themselves a livelihood, each consenting to give a considerable number of pictures to the Society, and that the gains as well as the losses should be taken in common.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Spring 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 498), p 37
“There is no blue without yellow and without orange, and if you put in blue, then you must put in yellow, and orange too, mustn't you? Oh well, you will tell me that what I write to you are only banalities.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Émile Bernard, June 1888, in 'Van Gogh's Letters'.
“About staying in the south, even if it's more expensive — Look, we love Japanese painting, we've experienced its influence — all the Impressionists have that in common — and we wouldn't go to Japan, in other words, to what is the equivalent of Japan, the south? So I believe that the future of the new art still lies in the south after all. But it's bad policy to live there alone when two or three could help each other to live on little.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, c. 5 June 1888, in 'Van Gogh's Letters', letter 620, Van Gogh museum. Note: Vincent was busy, trying to convince a. o. Paul Gauguin to come to Arles, and to settle there.
“Here's what I wanted to say about the white and the black [tones]. Let's take 'The Sower'. The painting is divided into two; one half is yellow, the top; the bottom is violet. Well, the white trousers [Van Gogh darked them later!] rest the eye and distract it just when the excessive simultaneous contrast of yellow and violet would annoy it. That's what I wanted to say.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to , c. 19 June 1888; letter 628, van Goghmuseum
“More and more it seems to me that the pictures which must be painted to make present-day painting completely itself... are beyond the power of one isolated individual. They will therefore probably be created by groups of men combining together to execute an idea held in common.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (June, 1888) in Letters to Émile Bernard (1938) New York. See also John Rewald, History of Impressionism (1946) p. 402.
“All my work is in a way founded on Japanese art.. .Japanese art, in decadence in its own country, takes root again among the French impressionist artists.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Summer 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 510) p. 32
“After the crisis which I went through coming down here I can make no plans nor anything, I am decidedly better now, but hope, the desire to succeed is gone, and I work because I must, so as not to suffer too much mentally, so as to distract my mind.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Summer 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 518) p. 22
“For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream in the same simple way as I dream about the black dots representing towns and villages on a map.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Monday, 9 or Tuesday, 10 July 1888, as quoted in Windows of the Soul : Experiencing God in New Ways‎ (1996) by Ken Gire, p. 91.; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, (letter 638)
“Now I'm working with another model, a postman in a blue uniform with gold trimmings, a big, bearded face, very Socratic. A raging republican, like père Tanguy. A more interesting man than many people..”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, 31 July 1888; from letter 652 - van goghletters online
“I have a study of a garden, almost a metre wide. Poppies and other red flowers in green in the foreground, then a patch of bluebells.. .At the end, black cypresses against little low white houses with orange roofs .. ..I know very well that not a single flower was drawn, that they're just little licks of colour, red, yellow, orange, green, blue, violet, but the impression of all those colours against one another is nonetheless there in the painting as it is in nature.. .You see that the motif is really summery.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Willemien, 31 July 1888; from original letter 653 – van goghletters; Van Gogh Museum
“I've just finished a canvas of a café interior at night [Night Café], lit by lamps. Some poor night-prowlers are sleeping in a corner. The room is painted red, and inside, in the gaslight, the green billiard table, which casts an immense shadow over the floor. In this canvas there are 6 or 7 different reds, from blood-red to delicate pink, contrasting with the same number of pale or dark greens.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Willemien, 9/14 September 1888,
“When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, c. Saturday, 29 September 1888; as cited in An Examined Faith : Social Context and Religious Commitment (1991) by James Luther Adams and George K. Beach, p. 259
“The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter, Tuesday, 18 September 1888; as cited in Van Gogh : The Self-portraits (1969) by Fritz Erpel, p. 17.
“If we study Japanese art, you see a man who is undoubtedly wise, philosophic and intelligent who spends his time how? In studying the distance between the earth and the moon? No. In studying the policy of Bismarck? No. He studies a single blade of grass..”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Sept. 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 542), p. 39
“I should not ask anything better, but when it is a question of several painters living in community life, I stipulate before everything that there must be an abbot to keep order, and that would naturally be Gauguin. That is why I would like Gauguin to be here [in Arles ] first.. .If I can get back the money already spent which you [Theo] have lent me for several years, we will launch out, and try to found a studio for a renaissance and not for a decadence.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Autumn 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 544), p. 37
“Here, under a stronger sun, I have found true what Pissarro said, and what Gauguin wrote to me as well, the simplicity, the lack of color, the gravity of great sunlight effects.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Oct. 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 555) p. 28
“This art that we are all working in, we feel it has a long future before it, and one must have some settled base, like steady people, and not like decadents. Here my life will become more and more like a Japanese painter's, living close to nature like a petty tradesman.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Theo, Autumn 1888; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 540), pp. 22-23
“Gauguin interests me very much as a man - very much. For a long time now it has seemed to me that in our nasty profession of painting we are most sorely in need of men with the hands and the stomachs of workmen. More natural tastes - more loving and more charitable temperaments - than the decadent dandies of the Parisian boulevards have. Well, here we are without the slightest doubt in the presence of a virgin creature with savage instincts. With Gauguin blood and sex prevail over ambition.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to , ca. 2 November, 1888.
“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.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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, (letter 569), p 24
“When I came out of the hospital with kind old Roulin I thought that there had been nothing wrong with me, but afterwards I felt I had been ill. Well, well, there are moments when I am wrung by enthusiasm or madness or prophecy like a Greek oracle on a tripod.. .Everyone suffers here either from fever, or hallucination, or madness, we understand each other like members of the same family.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 3 Febr. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935, (letter 576), p 25
“..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.”
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) first seen 1889 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 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, (letter 579), p 25