A Quote by John Berger

When he painted a road, the roadmakers were there in his imagination, when he painted the turned earth of a ploughed field, the gesture of the blade turning the earth was included in his own act. Whenever he looked he saw the labour of existence; and this labour, recognised as such, was what constituted reality for him. (On Vincent Van Gogh)

John Berger

Quote Topics

Act Blade Earth Existence Field Gesture Him His Imagination Included Labour Looked Own Painted Reality Recognised Road Saw Turned Turning Van Van Gogh Were Whenever

Quote Author

John Berger
English - Novelist
November 5, 1926 - January 2, 2017

Vincent van Gogh's mother painted all of his best things. The famous mailed decapitated ear was a figment of the public relations firm engaged by Van Gogh's dealer.

Roy Blount, Jr.

I slept in van Gogh's bed. I worked in the room where he painted. I saw the place where he was cared for when he cut off his ear. I lived in the jail cell where he stayed. And I looked out the window. You remember that picture of the cornfields through the bars? That was what I saw.

Irving Stone

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It's the same with me and writing.

Wayne Dyer

What is drawing? It is working oneself through an invisible iron wall that seems to stand between what one feels and what one can do. - Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to His Brother

Hokusai

When a buddha is painted, not only a clay altar or lump of earth is used, but the thirty-two marks, a blade of grass, and the cultivation of wisdom for incalculable eons are used. As a Buddha has been painted on a single scroll in this way, all buddhas are painted buddhas, and all painted buddhas are actual buddhas.

Dogen

I had a Vincent van Gogh, a small Provençal landscape. We sold it. If you're going to have a van Gogh it should be a really good van Gogh.

Pierre Berge

Vincent van Gogh was sane when he painted that piece of art, because when you you feel the mania and depression, you have all the heaven and hell your heart has ever experienced that you can tap into, to be able to create something that can last several lifetimes.

Paul Dalio

He made his colours, built his stretchers, plastered his canvas, painted his pictures, carpentered his frames, and painted them. 'Too bad I can't buy my own pictures,' he murmured aloud. 'Then I'd be completely self-sufficient.'

Irving Stone

I thought maybe I could become like the next Van Gogh. I bought a sunflower and painted it, and it looked like the work of a 6-year-old.

Takeshi Kitano

All the old bogeys of 'dignified subject-matter,' of 'balanced compositions,' of 'correct drawing' were laid to rest. The artist was responsible to no one but his own sensibilities for what he painted and how he painted it.

Ernst Gombrich

Labour allowed ourselves to be painted as anti-business for talking about insecurity, when in reality, the opposite was true.

Sadiq Khan

What delight To back the flying steed, that challenges The wind for speed! - seems native more of air Than earth! - whose burden only lends him fire! - Whose soul, in his task, turns labour into sport; Who makes your pastime his! I sit him now! He takes away my breath! He makes me reel! I touch not earth - I see not - hear not. All Is ecstasy of motion!

James Sheridan Knowles

I don't think it was pain that made [Vincent Van Gogh] great - I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had.

David Lynch

Inarticulate wretches have been behind most of the major advances in civilization. If Vincent Van Gogh had been able to get on with his neighbours, then he might have become an excellent painter-decorator, and received a big turn out at his funeral, and that would be that. But the genes wouldn't let him.