How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?
Vincent Van GoghRead
Art is something greater and higher than our own skill or knowledge or learning. That art is something which, though produced by human hands, is not wrought by hands alone, but wells up from a deeper source, from a man's soul.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art transcends technical ability and emerges from a deeper, soulful place within an individual.
In this quote, Vincent Van Gogh emphasizes that true art is not merely a product of technical skill or learned knowledge, but rather it springs from a profound source within the artist's soul. He suggests that art is a greater force, reflecting deeper emotions and insights that go beyond the ability to create, highlighting the spiritual and emotional connection that art fosters between the artist and their work.
Themes
ArtSoulCreationExpressionHuman Experience
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can inspire artists at a gallery opening to reflect on the deeper meaning of their work.
More from Vincent Van Gogh
All quotes →Describing Starry Night: Firmament and planets both disappeared, but the mighty breath which gives life to all things and in which all is bound up remained.
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To express a marriage of two complementary colors, their mingling and their opposition, the mysterious vibrations of kindred tones.
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Great things do not just happen by impulse, _x000D_ but as a succession of small things linked together.
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The world concerns me only in so far as I have a certain debt and duty to it, because I have lived in it for thirty years and owe to it to leave behind some souvenir in the shape of drawings and paintings – not done to please any particular movement, but within which a genuine human sentiment is expressed.
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To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.
Vincent Van GoghRead
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