Lessons of Van Gogh
Philosophy and Spirituality

There are so many people, especially among our friends, who believe that words are insignificant. On the contrary, don't you think, it's as interesting and challenging to express something eloquently as it is to paint it? There's the art of lines and colors, but the art of words is equally significant and enduring.

More and more, it seems to me that the paintings that ought to be made, the necessary and essential ones for contemporary painting to reach its full potential and ascend to the sublime heights achieved by Greek sculptors, German musicians, and French novelists, surpass the capabilities of an isolated individual. Therefore, it is likely that these paintings will be created by groups of individuals coming together to realize a shared vision.

Christ, alone among all the philosophers, magicians, and others, affirmed eternal life as the main certainty – the infinity of time and the non-existence of death. This belief stands as the necessity and raison d'être of serenity and devotion.

[Christ] lived serenely as an artist greater than all artists – disdaining both marble and clay and color – working in living flesh. He, the ultimate artist, hardly conceivable with the obtuse instrument of our nervous and stupefied modern brains, did not make statues or paintings or even books... He affirms it loudly... he made... living men immortal.

This great artist [Christ] did not write books either – Christian literature as a whole would indeed infuriate him, and very few literary products could stand alongside the Gospel of Luke, or Paul's epistles – so simple in their direct or forceful form. This great artist ...  while disdaining writing books on ideas and emotions, certainly held the spoken word in higher regard – especially the parable (Such as the sower, the harvest, the fig tree, etc.) And who would dare to claim that he lied on the day when he predicted the fall of the Roman structures and proclaimed, "Even though heaven and earth may pass away, my words will not pass away.

Yet, our own true life as painters is very humble indeed.

Vegetating under the mind-numbing yoke of the difficulties of an almost impracticable profession on this thankless planet, on the surface of which 'the love of art causes true love to be lost.

Since, however, nothing opposes the supposition that on the other innumerable planets and suns there may also be lines, shapes, and colors, we remain free to maintain a relative serenity regarding the possibilities of creating art in better and changed conditions of existence – an existence transformed by a phenomenon perhaps no more cunning and surprising than the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly, or a white grub into a cockchafer.

That existence as a painter-butterfly would have its field of action among one of the innumerable stars, which after death might not be any more unapproachable or inaccessible to us than the black dots symbolizing cities and villages on a map are in our earthly life. Science and scientific reasoning seem to me to be instruments that will go far into the future.

The passage you unearthed in the Gospel concerning John the Baptist is absolutely what you saw there... people crowding around someone - asking, "Are you the Christ, are you Elijah?" In our day, it would be like asking Impressionism or one of its pioneering representatives, 'Have you found it?' That's right.

... there is only this one kernel, Christ – which from the point of view of art seems superior to me – in any case something else – than Greek, Indian, Egyptian, Persian antiquity, which were so far away. But I repeat – this Christ is more of an artist than artists – he works in living spirit and flesh; he makes men instead of statues so... .. I feel good about being an ox – being a painter... and I admire the bull, the eagle, the man, with a veneration – which – will prevent me from being ambitious.

Studying and analyzing society always means more than moralizing.

Is it a rebirth, is it a decadence, we cannot be the judges, being too close not to be misled by the distortions of perspective. Contemporary events take on proportions that are probably exaggerated as regards our misfortunes and our merits.

...but something complete, is a perfection and makes infinity tangible to us.

Am I, my dear friend Bernard, very incomprehensible this time? I am trying to make you see the great simple thing, the painting of humanity, of a whole republic let's say rather, by the simple means of the portrait.

What do differences matter when it is all about expressing yourself powerfully?

I personally find continence is quite good for me. It's enough for our weak, impressionable artists' brains to give their essence to the creation of our paintings. Because in thinking, calculating, and wearing ourselves out, we expend cerebral activity.

To be exiled, a reject of society, just like us artists are, she [the prostitute] is undoubtedly our friend and sister. And in finding herself in this position of an outcast, like us, she enjoys an independence that is not without its advantages, all things considered. Therefore, let's not adopt a false perspective by thinking that we can help her through social rehabilitation, which, in any case, is impractical and would be detrimental to her.

Ah, my dear friends, we crazy people do enjoy the eye all the same, don't we? Alas, nature is paid on the beast, and our bodies are despicable and sometimes a heavy load.

Art is long and life is short, and we must be patient while trying to sell our skin dearly.

It seems to me that we ourselves only serve as intermediaries and that it will only be a next generation that will manage to live in peace. Finally, all this, our duties and our possibilities of action cannot become clearer to us than through experience itself.

... but modern reality has such a hold over us that even when trying abstractly to reconstruct ancient times in our thoughts, just at that very moment, the petty events of our lives tear us away from these meditations, and our own adventures throw us forcibly into personal sensations: joy, boredom, suffering, anger, or smiling.

Society sometimes makes our existence very painful, and from this also comes our impotence and the imperfection of our work.