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Bram van Velde Quotes
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Bram van Velde was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme, and Lyrical Abstraction. He is often seen as member of the School of Paris but his work resides somewhere between expressionism and surrealism, and evolved in the 1960s into an expressive abstract art. His paintings from the 1950s are similar to the contemporary work of Matisse, Picasso and the abstract expressionist Adolph Gottlieb. He was championed by a number of French-speaking writers, including Samuel Beckett and the poet André du Bouchet. Wikipedia  

✵ 19. October 1895 – 28. December 1981
Bram van Velde photo
Bram van Velde: 97 quotes1 like

Bram van Velde Quotes

“There’s always doubt. There’s nothing you can get hold of.”

Bram van Velde

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

“To be nothing. Just nothing. It’s a frightening experience. You have to let go of everything.”

Bram van Velde

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

“At is taking risks.... a sincere attempt to achieve the impossible, the unknown.”

Bram van Velde

short quotes, 14 September 1967; p. 68
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Everyone cheats. Only artists don’t. They don’t fool people and they aren’t fooled. They are outside all that. Nobody can understand them.”

Bram van Velde

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

“When you get to the bottom, you discover that there is no room for pride. That’s what I paint.”

Bram van Velde

short quotes, 28 December 1967; p. 69
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“It is important to see that my paintings are ultimately stimulating. They are not at all the kind of thing that inspires despair.”

Bram van Velde

short quotes, 2 November 1971 pp. 84-85
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

“I have to try to see where seeing is no longer possible, where visibility is gone.”

Bram van Velde

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

“The artist is the bearer of life.”

Bram van Velde

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

“I'm now in a big working period, which takes me up so much that hardly anything of me remains. I have never been strong in theories and this becomes worse and worse. My work should give me satisfaction, and that is about life and death... Several paintings full of life and beauty arose again and give me the courage and joy to proceed on the road. There are also several paintings in which I am involved for less than half, discharges in a short time, which have existence for a while, but will not reach shaping.”

Bram van Velde

Letter to H. E. Kramer, 28-07-1929, as quoted in: Bram van Velde, A Tribute, Municipal Museum De Lakenhal Leiden, Municipal Museum Schiedam, Museum de Wieger, Deurne 1994 (English translation: Charlotte Burgmans)
1920's

“Painting, an oeuvre, is not such a big deal, it is so unimportant. But that’s precisely what makes it interesting.”

Bram van Velde

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

“There is only the present. A painting is an instant of time that has escaped oblivion.”

Bram van Velde

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

“I paint the impossibility of painting.”

Bram van Velde

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

“Painting lives only through the slide towards the unknown in oneself.”

Bram van Velde

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

“I can’t say anything. There are no words.”

Bram van Velde

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

“Yes, perhaps there is some enjoyment in it [his paintings] too, somewhere.”

Bram van Velde

short quotes, 13 April 1968; p. 70
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Artists don’t live in the everyday world. That’s why people think they’re an odd bunch.”

Bram van Velde

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

“A painter is somebody who sees. I paint the moment when I set out. When I set out to see. And it’s the same thing for the viewer. When he approaches the canvas, he is advancing towards an encounter. The encounter with vision.”

Bram van Velde

short quotes, 14 September 1967; p. 67
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“Because it's an adventure out of all proportion. You have to devote all your strength to it and it's never enough.”

Bram van Velde

two short quotes, 24 August 1970; p. 78
1970's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde (1970 - 1972)

“The artist is living a secret that he has to make manifest”

Bram van Velde

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

“Each painting contains so much suffering.”

Bram van Velde

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

“Painting is so stupid, so simple. I paint to get out of the through. I paint my misery.”

Bram van Velde

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

“Art is not for the personal satisfaction of one or the other, but art wants to return all what’s in life… Art wants to give back everything what’s in our lives. The more comprehensive the artist stands in life the more powerful his work will speak, and therefore a work of art is a measure of the mental size of his creator.”

Bram van Velde

Letter to H. E. Kramer, 25-10-1926, as quoted in: Bram van Velde, A Tribute, Municipal Museum De Lakenhal Leiden, Municipal Museum Schiedam, Museum de Wieger, Deurne 1994, p. 44 (English translation: Charlotte Burgmans)
1920's

“When I look back to a recent painting, I can hardly bear th suffering in it.”

Bram van Velde

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

“Something is trying to come into the world. But I don’t know what it is. I never start by knowing. It's impossible to know. Truth is not knowledge.”

Bram van Velde

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

“Painting is getting in touch with the truth. It's a matter of summoning up the vision I need.”

Bram van Velde

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

“Waiting for the truth.”

Bram van Velde

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