Small things brought together

Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, nov. 2016

"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."

~Vincent Van Gogh

I try more and more

Portrait of young woman with dog Puck, by Thérèse Schwartze,

ca. 1879 - ca. 1885. Oil on Canvas, 144cm × 103cm.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2016.

"I try more and more to be myself,

caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove."

~Vincent Van Gogh

Is this for ever?

Self-portrait, Vincent van Gogh, 1887
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

"You may not always be able to say what it is that confines, that immures, 
that seems to bury, and yet you feel I know not what bars,
I know not what gates — walls.
Is all that imaginary, a fantasy? I don’t think so; and then you ask yourself,
Dear God, is this for long, is this for ever, is this for eternity?
You know, what makes the prison disappear is every deep, serious attachment.
To be friends, to be brothers, to love; that opens the prison through sovereign power,
through a most powerful spell.
But he who doesn’t have that remains in death.
But where sympathy springs up again, life springs up again."
~Vincent van Gogh
brief 133, or int.: letter 155

Creator - Re-creators

Details of some paintings at The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Do you know at least two of them? :-)

Beauty and sadness

Johannes Cornelisz. Verspronck
Portret van een meisje in het blauw, 1641
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 13 juli 2016 

"Beauty and sadness always go together."

~George MacDonald

Solitude, silence & a strong determination to listen

"Many voices ask for our attention.
There is a voice that says, 'Prove that you are a good person.'
Another voice says, 'You’d better be ashamed of yourself.'
There also is a voice that says, 'Nobody really cares about you,'
and one that says, 'Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.'
But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says,
'You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.'
That’s the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, 
requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen.
That’s what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us 'my Beloved'."
~Henri Nouwen

Of what’s going on within

"..Because of that, you’re not without melancholy,

and you feel emptiness where there could be friendship and high and serious affections,

and you feel a terrible discouragement gnawing at your psychic energy itself,

and fate seems able to put a barrier against the instincts for affection,

or a tide of revulsion that overcomes you.

And then you say, How long, O Lord!

Well, then, what can I say; does what goes on inside show on the outside?
Someone has a great fire in his soul and nobody ever comes to warm themselves at it,
and passers-by see nothing but a little smoke at the top of the chimney and then go on their way.

So now what are we to do, keep this fire alive inside, have salt in ourselves, wait patiently,
but with how much impatience, await the hour,
I say, when whoever wants to, will come and sit down there, will stay there, for all I know?
May whoever believes in God await the hour, which will come sooner or later.

In the springtime a bird in a cage knows very well that there’s something he’d be good for;

he feels very clearly that there’s something to be done but he can’t do it;

what it is he can’t clearly remember, and he has vague ideas and says to himself,

‘the others are building their nests and making their little ones and raising the brood’,

and he bangs his head against the bars of his cage.

And then the cage stays there and the bird is mad with suffering.

‘Look, there’s an idler’, says another passing bird — that fellow’s a sort of man of leisure.

And yet the prisoner lives and doesn’t die; nothing of what’s going on within shows outside,

he’s in good health, he’s rather cheerful in the sunshine.

But then comes the season of migration. A bout of melancholy —

but, say the children who look after him,

he’s got everything that he needs in his cage, after all —

but he looks at the sky outside, heavy with storm clouds,

and within himself feels a rebellion against fate.

I’m in a cage, I’m in a cage, and so I lack for nothing, you fools!

Me, I have everything I need!

Ah, for pity’s sake, freedom, to be a bird like other birds!"

~Vincent van Gogh,
excerpts from letter 133, to Theo van Gogh, Cuesmes, juni 1880

A deeper meaning

"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."

~Vincent van Gogh

detail "Amandelbloesem" - Vincent van Gogh, 1890

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

"I want to touch people with my art.

I want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly'."

~Vincent van Gogh

To feel that there is a God, a living One

"To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one,

but a living One."

~Vincent van Gogh, 1881

Hij vormde mensen

"Christus leefde als een grotere kunstenaar dan alle kunstenaars,

want Hij gaf niet om marmer, klei of verf – Hij vormde mensen."

~Vincent van Gogh, 1888

See what you believe

"Faith is to believe what you do not see;

the reward of this faith is to see what you believe."

~Saint Augustine

We have to learn

"To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life."
~Vincent van Gogh

The supreme artist

"Jesus is the supreme artist, more of an artist than all others..

One cannot do better than hold onto the thought of God through everything,

under all circumstances...

at all places, at all times, and try to acquire more knowledge

about Him,

which one can do from the Bible as well as from all other things."

~Vincent van Gogh, 1882

At the beginning

"I now consider myself to be at the beginning of the beginning

of making something serious."

~Vincent van Gogh

Comfort in this life

"If God's love for his children is to be measured by our health, wealth,
and comfort in this life,
God hated the apostle Paul."
~John Piper

Die of passion

"I would rather die of passion than of boredom."

~Vincent van Gogh

To love people

"There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."

~Vincent van Gogh

His unfailing love

"The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love."

~Psalm 147:11

Seek only light and freedom

Detail van "Olijfgaard", juni 1889. Kröller-Müller Museum Otterlo

"Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire."

~Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

God te kennen

"Maar onwillekeurig ben ik altijd geneigd te geloven dat de beste manier om God te kennen is:

Hem heel lief te hebben ... dat voert tot God, dat voert tot het onwankelbaar geloof."

~Vincent van Gogh, Borinage België, 1880