Some more interesting quotes from painter Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890).Talking about light, in a letter to painter Émile Bernard in 1888, from the south of France:
"Oh! that beautiful mid-summer sun here. It beats down on one's head, and I haven't the slightest doubt that it makes one crazy. But as I was so to begin with, I only enjoy it."
Regarding the night sky, in a letter to his brother Theo in August 1888, he wrote that he saw:
"...the mysterious brightness of a pale star in the infinite. ...You must be able to live on a piece of bread while you are working all day, and have enough strength to smoke and drink your glass in the evening.... And all the same to feel the stars and the infinite high and clear above you. Then life is almost enchanted after all."
In another letter to Theo:
"Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star."
And to a Paris newspaper critic who had praised his work, he wrote:
"It is absolutely certain that I shall never do important things."
If only he knew!
