What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest.
Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody.
This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.
Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings.
Van Gogh to Theo van Gogh. The Hague, on or about Friday, 21 July 1882
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by ringlunatic with ♥
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Poverty has its advantages and disadvantages. Despite poverty, we’ll take the chance. The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm fearsome, but could never see that the dangers were a reason to continue strolling on the beach. They leave that wisdom to those to whom it appeals. When the storm comes — when night falls — what’s worse: the danger or the fear of danger? Give me reality, the danger itself.
Four people on a bench, September 1882
You see, Rappard, where I myself seek to go, whither I seek to push others as well, is to become fishermen in the sea that we call the ocean of reality, but for myself, and for those fellow human beings I sometimes buttonhole, I definitely want ‘that little hut’ as well. And in that little hut the above-mentioned things. So the sea and that haven, or that haven and the sea.
Letter to Anthon van Rappard. Etten, Wednesday, 23 November 1881
[Who was Anthon van Rappard? He was a Dutch painter, pupil of Lawrence Alma-Tadema and friend of Vincent for a short while. Van Gogh wrote him 58 letters, but sadly the friendship ended in a bad way.
To see some of Rappards work you can have a look at Wikimedia Commons :)]
Leo Jansen opent tentoonstelling in Het Dolhuys (by Van Gogh Museum)
On August 24 Van Gogh Museum curator Leo Jansen opens the Van Gogh exhibition in museum Dolhuys
For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.
- Van Gogh
I can talk for hours and hours about this. But, that’s for later. Off to sleep!
(via huesofscarlett)
Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night, 1888
I was interrupted precisely by the work that a new painting of the outside of a café in the evening has been giving me these past few days. On the terrace, there are little figures of people drinking. A huge yellow lantern lights the terrace, the façade, the pavement, and even projects light over the cobblestones of the street, which takes on a violet-pink tinge. The gables of the houses on a street that leads away under the blue sky studded with stars are dark blue or violet, with a green tree. Now there’s a painting of night without black. With nothing but beautiful blue, violet and green, and in these surroundings the lighted square is coloured pale sulphur, lemon green. I enormously enjoy painting on the spot at night. In the past they used to draw, and paint the picture from the drawing in the daytime. But I find that it suits me to paint the thing straightaway. It’s quite true that I may take a blue for a green in the dark, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since you can’t make out the nature of the tone clearly. But it’s the only way of getting away from the conventional black night with a poor, pallid and whitish light, while in fact a mere candle by itself gives us the richest yellows and oranges.
Letter to Willemien van Gogh. Arles, Sunday, 9 and about Friday, 14 September 1888
View of Montmartre with Windmills, 1886
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.
Vincent Van Gogh (via fashionsmostwanted)
— vincent van gogh, almond branches in bloom (1890)
Executed in Saint Remy during 1890, the year of Vincent’s death. It was a gift that Vincent made to his brother Theo Van Gogh and his wife Johanna Bonger for the birth of their son, named Vincent Willem.
HOW?? HOW?!?!?
Well… it has not been open for business for that long ;)
