Art is Jealous , she will not allow illness to take precedence of her

Vincent Van Gogh

And I give in to her;

In order to attain real art

one must both work hard and long;

The thing I have set my mind upon as the goal

of all my efforts is devilish difficult;;

and yet I do not think that I am aiming too high

I will make drawings that will amaze some people;

In short, I will bring it to such a pitch

that they will say of my work:

"The man feels deeply and he is subtle withal"

In spite of my so-called coarseness.

do you understand?

May be precisely on that account.

At present, it sounds presumptuous- to speak in this way

but it is for this very reason I wish to put vigor into my work;

For what I am in the eyes of most people?

a non-entity or an oddity or a disagreeable man

someone who neither has nor ever will have any place in society

In short something less than the least;

Well, granting this is so, I should like to show, by my work

what the heart of such a non-entity of such insignificant man conceals;

This is my ambition which for all that is the outcome,

more of love than that of resentment

more of a feeling of peaceful serenity

than of passion

And even though I often have ot content with

all these difficulties, yet I feel within me

Calm, Pure harmony, and Music!

I prefer a piece of work that is a failure to Inactivity

We shall not have to wait so very long

before what we are producing will have become important!

Authors

Vincent van Gogh