Rembrandt is so deeply mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.
Do you know that drawing with words is also an art… ?
Art is jealous, and demands our whole strength … .
One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever come to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on the way.
The sight of stars makes me dream.
Surely the true path is to dive deep into nature.
My brushwork is quite unsystematic. I slam the paint on in all sorts of ways and leave each result to take care of itself.
Love is something eternal.
The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic that to love others.
What I need is courage, and this often fails me. And it is also a fact that since my disease, when I am in the fields I am overwhelmed by a feeling of loneliness to such a horrible extent that I shy away from going out. But this will change all the same as time goes on. Only when I stand a painting before my easel do I feel somewhat alive. Never mind, this is going to change too, for now my health is so good that I suppose the physical part of me will gain the victory.
I believe more and more that God must not be judged on this earth. It is one of His sketches that has turned out badly.
One must never let the fire go out in one’s soul, but keep it burning.
What is true is that I have at times earned my own crust of bread, and at other times a friend has given it to me out of the goodness of his heart. I have lived whatever way I could, for better or for worse, taking things just as they came.
What molting time is to birds, so adversity or misfortune is … for us humans.
I want to get to the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply.
All art is a gift. It is first of all a gift that the maker can do it. It is then a gift to someone else, whether they pay for it or not. The wonder of it is that we cannot get the production of these gifts stopped. Art is life seeking itself. It is our intractable expressions of love for the beauties, ideas and epiphanies we regularly find. I framed the painting. It’s now hanging in our den. “I have walked this earth for 30 years, and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir.
Nature always begins by resisting the artist, but he who really takes it seriously does not allow that resistance to put him off his stride; on the contrary, it is that much more of a stimulus to fight for victory.
I believe it is one’s duty to paint the rich and magnificent aspects of nature. We need gaiety and happiness, hope and love.
The wheat field has …poetry; it is like a memory of something one has once seen. We can only make our pictures speak.
Spring is the fresh green of young corn and the pink blush of blossoms. Autumn contrasts the yellowed foilage with violet hues. Winter is the white of snow against its black forms … Summer is the contrast of blues and the golden bronze of the corn.
