One association with the arts that I vividly remember was a magazine called Normal Instructor, a teachers' magazine, that Miss George would hold up with illustrations of great artworks like [Vincent] van Gogh and Rembrandt [van Rijn].
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.
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
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.
I knew that I had to find out more about van Gogh. Even though I was far too young, and felt I did not have sufficient technique to write a book about Vincent van Gogh, I knew I had to try. If I didn't I would never write anything else.
It may be a point of great pride to have a Van Gogh on the living room wall, but the prospects of having Van Gogh himself in the living room would put a great many devoted art lovers to rout.
I thought it would be very nice to become Picasso or Rembrandt, or a van Gogh.
Someone who copies a Van Gogh does not therefore become Van Gogh, and the same would go for Mozart or anyone else who contributed something that was original. Certainly in the way that I described visualizing numbers in abstract, meaningful shapes.
I want to be remembered. I want to have a legacy. Van Gogh only sold one painting before he died, which would mean that he wasn't famous when he was alive. But in 2017, I know who Van Gogh is.
The whole idea of comparing climbers is ludicrous. It would be like sitting Van Gogh down with Rembrandt and saying, Ready, get set, go.
Loneliness is a kind of prison. [Vincent Van Gogh]
I've always been really fascinated by Vincent van Gogh.
Everyone said to Vincent van Gogh, "You can't be a great painter, you only have one ear." And you know what he said? "I can't hear you".
Someday my paintings will be hanging in the Louvre. [Vincent Van Gogh]
Vincent Van Gogh, who said to the hat salesman, I like it, but it keeps sliding over my ear. Never got a dinner!
It's so easy to love. The only hard thing is to be loved. [Vincent Van Gogh]
So, okay, I'm not a genius. Vincent Van Gogh and Albert Einstein were geniuses.