What do you think?
Rate this book
Creative Inspiration: Van Gogh
A beautiful and delightfully handy art book that is designed to inspire, this collection of 150 beautifully reproduced Vincent Van Gogh images makes a stylish gift. His writings have been edited and selected to create an enlightening, uplifting, and helpful book for art lovers and creatives, amateur and professional alike.
- GenresNonfictionArt
160 pages, Hardcover
Published October 10, 2017
About the author
Vincent van Gogh
720 books2,406 followersVincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.
Van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland. The son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence.
Between 1860 and 1880, when he finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had had two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an art salesman, and a preacher in the Borinage (a dreary mining district in Belgium), where he was dismissed for overzealousness. He remained in Belgium to study art, determined to give happiness by creating beauty. The works of his early Dutch period are somber-toned, sharply lit, genre paintings of which the most famous is "The Potato Eaters" (1885). In that year van Gogh went to Antwerp where he discovered the works of Rubens and purchased many Japanese prints.
In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother Théo, the manager of Goupil's gallery. In Paris, van Gogh studied with Cormon, inevitably met Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin, and began to lighten his very dark palette and to paint in the short brushstrokes of the Impressionists. His nervous temperament made him a difficult companion and night-long discussions combined with painting all day undermined his health. He decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him and help found a school of art. Gauguin did join him but with disastrous results. In a fit of epilepsy, van Gogh pursued his friend with an open razor, was stopped by Gauguin, but ended up cutting a portion of his ear lobe off. Van Gogh then began to alternate between fits of madness and lucidity and was sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment.
In May of 1890, he seemed much better and went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the watchful eye of Dr. Gachet. Two months later he was dead, having shot himself "for the good of all." During his brief career he had sold one painting. Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brushstroke, in symbolic and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line. Van Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic, imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature.
Van Gogh, for whom color was the chief symbol of expression, was born in Groot-Zundert, Holland. The son of a pastor, brought up in a religious and cultured atmosphere, Vincent was highly emotional and lacked self-confidence.
Between 1860 and 1880, when he finally decided to become an artist, van Gogh had had two unsuitable and unhappy romances and had worked unsuccessfully as a clerk in a bookstore, an art salesman, and a preacher in the Borinage (a dreary mining district in Belgium), where he was dismissed for overzealousness. He remained in Belgium to study art, determined to give happiness by creating beauty. The works of his early Dutch period are somber-toned, sharply lit, genre paintings of which the most famous is "The Potato Eaters" (1885). In that year van Gogh went to Antwerp where he discovered the works of Rubens and purchased many Japanese prints.
In 1886 he went to Paris to join his brother Théo, the manager of Goupil's gallery. In Paris, van Gogh studied with Cormon, inevitably met Pissarro, Monet, and Gauguin, and began to lighten his very dark palette and to paint in the short brushstrokes of the Impressionists. His nervous temperament made him a difficult companion and night-long discussions combined with painting all day undermined his health. He decided to go south to Arles where he hoped his friends would join him and help found a school of art. Gauguin did join him but with disastrous results. In a fit of epilepsy, van Gogh pursued his friend with an open razor, was stopped by Gauguin, but ended up cutting a portion of his ear lobe off. Van Gogh then began to alternate between fits of madness and lucidity and was sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment.
In May of 1890, he seemed much better and went to live in Auvers-sur-Oise under the watchful eye of Dr. Gachet. Two months later he was dead, having shot himself "for the good of all." During his brief career he had sold one painting. Van Gogh's finest works were produced in less than three years in a technique that grew more and more impassioned in brushstroke, in symbolic and intense color, in surface tension, and in the movement and vibration of form and line. Van Gogh's inimitable fusion of form and content is powerful; dramatic, lyrically rhythmic, imaginative, and emotional, for the artist was completely absorbed in the effort to explain either his struggle against madness or his comprehension of the spiritual essence of man and nature.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
August 30, 2022
Beautiful. Semi-inspirational. Simplicity.
September 29, 2021
Reading all these beautiful quotes and seeing those sketches/drawings/paintings from Vince is just so amazing. I’ve always been intrigued by his story and will always find books to read more about him.
March 3, 2018
The insanely beautiful van Gogh, simply inspiring. Beauty lies in simplicity. Something about this book is just so special, and touches me sincerely.
October 8, 2017
Fin presentbok! Såg denna kleinblå (?) skönhet på Waterstones och läste den i en sittning på det starry night-lika No.1 Duke Street i Richmond en dag efter jobbet. Hade bröd och ost framför mig på bordet och kände mig mycket lycklig!
"As long as there's bread in the house [...] what more could I want? My enjoyment lies in my work getting better - and that absorbs me more and more."
image:
Ser nu fram emot den kommande filmen 'Loving Vincent': http://lovingvincent.com/
"As long as there's bread in the house [...] what more could I want? My enjoyment lies in my work getting better - and that absorbs me more and more."
image:
Ser nu fram emot den kommande filmen 'Loving Vincent': http://lovingvincent.com/
March 5, 2024
So inspirational. I love Vincent, he's my favorite painter, and I believe that this recompilation of some phrases he wrote on his letters is a very special way to keep his memory alive.
He's got good advice on how to perform someone's passion, and also on how to live when we don't have the corage to do it anymore.
A very nice read. I'll be rereading it multiple times.
He's got good advice on how to perform someone's passion, and also on how to live when we don't have the corage to do it anymore.
A very nice read. I'll be rereading it multiple times.
August 22, 2020
Este es un libro que se disfruta desde el tacto, que se lee con atención y de esos que sabes que, indudablemente, volverás a leer. La selección de los fragmentos extraídos de la correspondencia de Van Gogh nos permite adentrarnos progresivamente en su universo, tan único, acompañado además por algunos de sus bocetos. La composición es tan atinada como el azul de su portada.
February 17, 2020
Better than books oriented on motivation. Van Gogh's thoughts and views on the world are somethig else. Comes from the heart and actual experience, pain and achievement gained trough that pain. Would highly recommend.
November 15, 2017
Quotes from Van Gogh coupled with early sketches and drawings. Purchased from the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.
December 6, 2020
Very lovely and inspiring small read I’m proud to have
June 10, 2026
This was a physical book so have to write the quotes here:
“The battle is short and it’s worthwhile being sincere.”
“Anyway, it's not a bad idea for you to want to become an artist, because if one has fire in one, and soul, one can't keep stifling them and - one would rather burn than suffocate. What's inside must get out.”
“As against what I wrote to you, that I'm often heavy-hearted about many things, can't see everything as progress, &c., there's what I also said on a previous occasion: there are things that are worth doing one's best for, either because they gain approval or because, just the opposite, they have their own raison d'être. Blessed is be who has found his work, says Carlyle, and that's absolutely true.”
“Almost no one knows that the secret of beautiful work is to a large extent good faith and sincere feeling.”
“For the great doesn't happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”
“'... find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.”
“Do you know what I couldn't help thinking? - that in the first part of life as a painter one sometimes unintentionally makes things difficult for oneself - through a feeling of not yet having mastered the business - through the uncertainty one feels about whether one Will master it - through the fierce desire to make progress - through not yet trusting oneself - one cannot put aside a certain feeling of being harried, and one harries oneself despite not wanting to be harried when one works. There's nothing to be done about it, and this is a time that one also can't do without, and that should not and cannot be otherwise, in my view.”
“Of course I must seek in order to find, and not everything will come off by a long way, but in the end the work will be good.
Patience until it's good, not letting go until it's good, not doubting, is what I would like you and I to have together and to hold on to. If we hold onto that, I don't know to what extent we'll benefit financially, but I do believe that - on condition of collaboration and solidarity, however — we'll be able to persevere for our whole lives, sometimes selling nothing and finding life hard, then at times selling and having it easier.”
“The difficulties one faces in the first phase give the studies a painful quality at times.
"I don't regard this as something that discourages me, though, because I've noticed it in others as much as in myself, and in them it has increasingly gone away of its own accord.
'And work remains difficult at times throughout one's life, I believe, but not always with so few results as in the beginning.”
“But the way to do it better later is to do it as well as one can today, there can’t be anything but progress tomorrow.”
“Through working hard, old chap,
I hope to make something good one day.
I haven't got it yet, but I'm hunting it and fighting for it, I want something serious, something fresh- something with soul in it! Onward, onward!”
"This morning I still have a lot of work to do, I see that it isn't easy and will no doubt become much more difficult, yet have unfaltering hope that I'll succeed, and I'm also convinced that I'll learn to work by working, and that my work will become better and more substantial.”
“To understand all is to forgive all, and I believe that if we knew everything we'd arrive at a certain serenity. Now having this serenity as much as possible, even when one knows - little - nothing - for certain, is perhaps a better remedy against all ills than what's sold in the chemist's. A lot comes of its own accord, one grows and develops of one's own accord.”
“One becomes a painter by painting.”
“If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.”
“Isn't it the emotion, the sincerity of our feeling for nature, that leads us and - if these emotions are sometimes so strong that we work - without feeling that we're working -when sometimes the brushstrokes come in a sequence and in relation one to another like the words in a speech or a letter - then we have to remember that it hasn't always been like that, and that in the future there will also be quite a few heavy days without inspiration. So we have to strike while the iron's hot and lay aside the bars we forge.”
“You don't know how paralyzing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can't do anything. The canvas has an idiotic stare, and mesmerizes some painters so that they turn into idiots themselves.
Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas IS AFRAID of the truly passionate painter who dares — and who has once broken the spell of
‘you can't’”
“I know for certain that something would awaken in you in your own studio which you don't know of now - a huge, hidden force of working and creating
"And once it's awake, it's awake for good.”
“The battle is short and it’s worthwhile being sincere.”
“Anyway, it's not a bad idea for you to want to become an artist, because if one has fire in one, and soul, one can't keep stifling them and - one would rather burn than suffocate. What's inside must get out.”
“As against what I wrote to you, that I'm often heavy-hearted about many things, can't see everything as progress, &c., there's what I also said on a previous occasion: there are things that are worth doing one's best for, either because they gain approval or because, just the opposite, they have their own raison d'être. Blessed is be who has found his work, says Carlyle, and that's absolutely true.”
“Almost no one knows that the secret of beautiful work is to a large extent good faith and sincere feeling.”
“For the great doesn't happen through impulse alone, and is a succession of little things that are brought together.”
“'... find things beautiful as much as you can, most people find too little beautiful.”
“Do you know what I couldn't help thinking? - that in the first part of life as a painter one sometimes unintentionally makes things difficult for oneself - through a feeling of not yet having mastered the business - through the uncertainty one feels about whether one Will master it - through the fierce desire to make progress - through not yet trusting oneself - one cannot put aside a certain feeling of being harried, and one harries oneself despite not wanting to be harried when one works. There's nothing to be done about it, and this is a time that one also can't do without, and that should not and cannot be otherwise, in my view.”
“Of course I must seek in order to find, and not everything will come off by a long way, but in the end the work will be good.
Patience until it's good, not letting go until it's good, not doubting, is what I would like you and I to have together and to hold on to. If we hold onto that, I don't know to what extent we'll benefit financially, but I do believe that - on condition of collaboration and solidarity, however — we'll be able to persevere for our whole lives, sometimes selling nothing and finding life hard, then at times selling and having it easier.”
“The difficulties one faces in the first phase give the studies a painful quality at times.
"I don't regard this as something that discourages me, though, because I've noticed it in others as much as in myself, and in them it has increasingly gone away of its own accord.
'And work remains difficult at times throughout one's life, I believe, but not always with so few results as in the beginning.”
“But the way to do it better later is to do it as well as one can today, there can’t be anything but progress tomorrow.”
“Through working hard, old chap,
I hope to make something good one day.
I haven't got it yet, but I'm hunting it and fighting for it, I want something serious, something fresh- something with soul in it! Onward, onward!”
"This morning I still have a lot of work to do, I see that it isn't easy and will no doubt become much more difficult, yet have unfaltering hope that I'll succeed, and I'm also convinced that I'll learn to work by working, and that my work will become better and more substantial.”
“To understand all is to forgive all, and I believe that if we knew everything we'd arrive at a certain serenity. Now having this serenity as much as possible, even when one knows - little - nothing - for certain, is perhaps a better remedy against all ills than what's sold in the chemist's. A lot comes of its own accord, one grows and develops of one's own accord.”
“One becomes a painter by painting.”
“If one truly loves nature one finds beauty everywhere.”
“Isn't it the emotion, the sincerity of our feeling for nature, that leads us and - if these emotions are sometimes so strong that we work - without feeling that we're working -when sometimes the brushstrokes come in a sequence and in relation one to another like the words in a speech or a letter - then we have to remember that it hasn't always been like that, and that in the future there will also be quite a few heavy days without inspiration. So we have to strike while the iron's hot and lay aside the bars we forge.”
“You don't know how paralyzing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter you can't do anything. The canvas has an idiotic stare, and mesmerizes some painters so that they turn into idiots themselves.
Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas IS AFRAID of the truly passionate painter who dares — and who has once broken the spell of
‘you can't’”
“I know for certain that something would awaken in you in your own studio which you don't know of now - a huge, hidden force of working and creating
"And once it's awake, it's awake for good.”
May 14, 2023
Buku ini petikan kata kata Van Gogh melalui beberapa surat dan ada lukisan VG yang jarang kita lihat. Apa yang boleh disimpulkan VG seorang filsuf dan berfikiran tajam dalam banyak aspek terutama hal seni. Antara katanya “'We sometimes feel rather lonely and long for friends, and think we'd be quite different and happier if only we found "it", a friend of whom we would say, "this is it". But you, too, will already have started to notice that there's a lot of self-deception behind this, and that this longing, if we were to surrender to it too much, would cause us to stray from the path. To understand all is to forgive all, and I believe that if we knew everything we'd arrive at a certain serenity. Now having this serenity as much as possible, even when one knows - little - nothing - for certain, is perhaps a better remedy against all ills than what's sold in the chemist's. A lot comes of its own accord, one grows and develops of one's own accord. Secara keseluruhan buku ini penutup bagi misi memahami jiwa Van Gogh
March 1, 2024
2.29.24 RIP
Many sketches here along with auspicious quotes illustrating how an artists mind thinks, creates, and views a world. Vincent and Theo some would say were at opposite ends of the the universe--one was rational and logical and the other was passionate, emotional and some have remarked dramatic and irrational like a hungry animal cornered.
"An artist , in any case, is the exact opposite of someone living the life of leisure, and as I said, if one wants to draw a parallel, then either a smith or doctor corresponds more closely."
---Vincent van Gogh
Many sketches here along with auspicious quotes illustrating how an artists mind thinks, creates, and views a world. Vincent and Theo some would say were at opposite ends of the the universe--one was rational and logical and the other was passionate, emotional and some have remarked dramatic and irrational like a hungry animal cornered.
"An artist , in any case, is the exact opposite of someone living the life of leisure, and as I said, if one wants to draw a parallel, then either a smith or doctor corresponds more closely."
---Vincent van Gogh
November 1, 2020
3,5/5 stars. After visiting the Van Gogh Museum and becoming even more obsessed with him, I had to get this little book full of quotes. As I'm not an aspiring artist I didn't 'feel' all the quotes, but of course there were some really pretty ones in there about passion and nature. I liked that beside each quote there was one of his drawings, but I felt like there could be more variation in the drawings shown, as a lot were pretty similar.
July 21, 2026
Interesting and thoughtful quotes, nicely curated. Enjoyable read. I just wish the author had dated the quotes on the page they appear, as well as identifying the paintings with title and year. Yes, there is a list of credits in the back, but it doesn’t give the year of the quotes, eg, it just says “let 377.” An aside, the credits are in what looks like 4-pt type.
Printed on heavy stock with a beautiful thick cover, it seems like a vanity project.
Printed on heavy stock with a beautiful thick cover, it seems like a vanity project.
January 30, 2023
"While I'm working I feel an unlimited confidence in art and that I'll succeed, but on days of physical exhaustion or when there are financial obstacles I feel that faith less and am overcome by doubt, which I try to get over by immediately setting to work."
Such a wonderful book with thoughts of Vincent van Gogh.
Such a wonderful book with thoughts of Vincent van Gogh.
January 15, 2019
Este é um daqueles livros para ser ter na cabeceira da cama ou num escritório para momentos de emergência.
Tem um trabalho Fantástico de capa e diagramação. É um livro que serve bem ao seu propósito: inspiração.
Tem um trabalho Fantástico de capa e diagramação. É um livro que serve bem ao seu propósito: inspiração.
August 31, 2019
short book. It bring pieces of Vincent Van Gogh's letters organized by themes. You can sense the depth of this man also in his writings. He was really an observer and a reflexive person. I guess he would do well as a poet too. I have the book with the full letters. Let's see if I can read it soon.
February 3, 2023
I keep this book on my desk at all times and flip through every now and then. Very beautiful and inspirational quotes. What an interesting life this man lived. Would also very much recommend the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, where I picked up this treasure.
July 19, 2026
Some quotes hit the spot more than others, but I can't expect every single line in a book to be revolutionary. Even though I'm not an expert in arts, I did find myself looking at the pictures trying to study the techniques.
July 6, 2019
Beautiful and indeed inspiring. 10/10 would recommend to get this as a gift for your creative friend.
October 26, 2019
Beautiful and inspiring quotes taken from Van Gogh's letters
August 7, 2020
💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛
“the battle is short and it’s worthwhile being sincere”
“the battle is short and it’s worthwhile being sincere”
November 4, 2021
A gorgeous little book. I love Van Gogh so much!
December 2, 2022
Inspiring. A glimpse into the artist's mind with his own words (translated).
January 30, 2024
Great gift book for Van Gogh fans.
February 18, 2024
Loved how this book was prepared. Van Gogh is a great companion for every creative out there.
April 19, 2025
A calming, easy read on Van Gogh's inspirations.
January 1, 2026
Beautiful quaint book that spurns life into young artists like myself. A truly lovely and authentic vision of what calls artists and how one might keep pursuing life in art and art in life.
February 4, 2025
The drawings in this book I’ve never seen before, they’re really cool and make you understand the way he paints in the way he draws. Interesting and inspiring quotes from letters to his brother about why he kept working and painting although he never was financially free. He just did it for the pursuit. Serious 💯
May 15, 2018
This is such a beautiful little treasure for a bookshelf.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews