If I did not succeed I still thought that what I had worked on would be continued. Not immediately. But there are others who believe in things that are true.
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.
I am astonished at the high prices paid for works by painters who are dead, prices none of them could expect when they were alive. It is a kind of tulip trade, in which living painters suffer but do not profit.
Rembrandt is so deeply mysterious that he says things for which there are no words in any language.
Sometimes art seems to be something very sublime, and, as you say, something sacred.
To paint nature you must be in it a long time.
Painting demands an intelligent model.
For loneliness, worries, difficulties, the unsatisfied need for kindness and sympathy – that is what is hard to bear...
Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and continuous observations. By persistent, I mean not only continuous work, but also not giving up your opinion at the bidding of such and such a person.
Christ is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh, he makes men instead of statues.
I work as diligently on my canvases as the laborers do in their fields.
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.
In trees, I see expression and soul.
It is a pity that, as one gradually gains experience, one loses one’s youth.
Don’t lose heart if it’s very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes.
If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it.
That I was not suited to commerce or academic study in no way proves that I should also be unfit to be a painter.
Painting is a faith and that it brings with it the duty to pay no heed to public opinion – and that in it one conquers by perseverance and not by giving in.
I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.
Whoever lives sincerely and encounters much trouble and disappointment without being bowed down is worth more than one who has always sailed before the wind and has only known prosperity.