Quote

Just dash something down if you see a blank canvas staring at you with a certain imbecility. You do not know how paralyzing it is, that staring of a blank canvas which says to the painter: you don't know anything.

Vincent Van Gogh

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Vincent Van Gogh
Age: 37 †
Born: 1853
Born: March 30
Died: 1890
Died: July 29
Botanical Illustrator
Draftsperson
Drawer
Etcher
Graphic Artist
Lithographer
Painter
Printmaker
Brooklyn
New York
Vincent Willem van Gogh
Vincent-Willem van Gogh
van Gogh
Fan-kao
van gogh
Vincent Van Gogh
Wensheng Fangu
Fan-ku
v. van gogh
Fan'gao
Fangu
Gogh
j. van gogh
Painter
Says
Paralyzing
Imbecility
Certain
Dash
Anything
Insecurity
Something
Canvas
Blank
Staring

More quotes by Vincent Van Gogh

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It is better to be high-spirited even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent.
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What a simple thing death is, just as simple as the falling of an autumn leaf.
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Painting it was hard graft... in addition red, yellow, brown ochre, black, terra sienna, bistre, and the result is a red-brown that varies from bistre to deep wine-red and to pale, blond reddish.
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Painting demands an intelligent model.
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An artist needn't be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.
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The worse I get along with people the more I learn to have faith in Nature and concentrate on her.
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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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The great artist is the simplifier.
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You can't be at the pole and the equator at the same time. You must choose your own line, as I hope to do, and it will probably be color.
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What is drawing? How does one get there? It's working one's way through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. How can one get through that wall? - since hammering on it doesn't help at all. In my view, one must undermine the wall and grind through it slowly and patiently.
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In order to work and to become an artist one needs love. At least, one who wants sentiment in his work must in the first place feel it himself, and live with his heart
Vincent Van Gogh
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Do not become the slave of your model.
Vincent Van Gogh
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The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose.
Vincent Van Gogh
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I am an artist... It's self-evident that what that word implies is looking for something all the time without ever finding it in full. It is the opposite of saying, 'I know all about it. I've already found it.' As far as I'm concerned, the word means, 'I am looking. I am hunting for it. I am deeply involved.'
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When I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion. Then I go out and paint the stars.
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Everyone who works with love and with intelligence finds in the very sincerity of his love for nature and art a kind of armor against the opinions of other people.
Vincent Van Gogh
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I believe I do much better for the time being by first copying some good things than by working without that foundation
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My sketchbook is a witness of what I am experiencing, scribbling things whenever they happen.
Vincent Van Gogh
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It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one's youth.
Vincent Van Gogh
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My brushwork is quite unsystematic. I slam the paint on in all sorts of ways and leave each result to take care of itself.
Vincent Van Gogh