Bram van Velde: Trending quotes

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Bram van Velde: 194 quotes1 like

“You are in constant danger of being destroyed.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“The most difficult thing is when you can’t do anything. When you just have to wait.”

short quotes, 9 November 1965; p. 54
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“It is true that other people can help you, and to lasting effect... If I hadn't had Beckett in 1940 [in Paris, when Van Velde was strongly demoralized by the death of his wife], I'm not sure I could have stood it. I am really not sure... At that time he [Beckett] he was driven by an extremely aggressive and fiery Irish spirit. That has lessened as time has gone on... I don't know anywhere in modern art any more faithful or more impressive picture of contemporary humanity than the one he offers us in 'The Unamable.”

2 November 1970; p. 79
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

“I am powerless, helpless. Each time it’s a leap in the dark. A deliberate encounter with the unknown.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“I don't like talking. I don’t like people talking to me... Painting is silence.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“A painting is not a battle against other people, but against oneself.”

1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

“Oh Baudelaire... He used to be enormously important to me. It's thanks to him that I was able to get through the war [in Paris, during 1940 – 1945 Van Velde had a long and painful break, with only a few paintings he finished]. A true loyal mind without hypocrisy. The most universal spirit. The greatest Frenchman. I have always been much less interested in painters”

than Baudelaire - a great surprise to hear for Charles Juliet the interviewer
14 September 1967; p. 66
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Part of your work feels as clear, it gives you a sense of liberation or beauty and you recognize it as necessary pavements. You are thus in a sense ready. In the other part of your work this is not the case. Therein is the hidden development, which is the true essence of art… the higher purpose, the pursuit forward that art automatically calls. The unclear part of your work needs to progress (stopping is no option, is no life, no art) and it is clear when by working with head and heart, the real step forward has been achieved.”

Letter to B. Kramers, 1926, as quoted in: Bram van Velde, A Tribute, Municipal Museum De Lakenhal Leiden, Municipal Museum Schiedam, Museum de Wieger, Deurne 1994, p. 18 (English translation: Charlotte Burgmans)
1920's

“Painting is an aid to vision. It turns life, the complexity of life, into something visible. It reveals things that we don’t know how to see.”

2 April 1967; p. 62
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Through painting I try to get closer to nothingness, to the void.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Artists who are the defenders of true life become phonies. That’s the perfidious thing about this world. Society turns anyone with a bit of life inside them into a medical case.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“I don’t know if I've got close enough [in two recent paintings he made] to what I was really trying to achieve. But at least I've tried, I've made the attempt. I've done what I could. I've gone as far as my powers permitted.”

short quotes, 2 November 1970; p. 81
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

“Painting doesn't interest me... What I paint is beyond painting.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Each painting is linked to a fundamental drama.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Life is so difficult to catch.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“The beauty other people create is not for the artists. Artists have to live alone.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“The most difficult thing is not to want anything.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Creating a painting is a matter of ensuring that all its parts achieve unity. Though it's a precarious, fragile unity.”

1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

“Van Gogh... In this world of petty calculations, he was too intense. He frightened people. They cast him out.”

two quotes, 16 July 1970; p. 77
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

“The less you think, the better it is.”

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)