Ossip Zadkine - Gogh Quotes

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Arms, hands [of the two van Gogh brothers Vincent and Theo], like rifles, thrust out like non-stop ideas thoughts. Enormous thick veins like the ropes of a ship through which flow thoughts and inspirational excitement. They join the two brothers like nerve connections that pass from one body to the other, channeling the waves and opening up both in a magnetic ring of work and passion.

Ossip Zadkine
How should one approach the person of van Gogh in order to be able to build a statue of him? How can one place him outside of himself, separate him from the tragic character of his life? How can one build a statue in the open air which simultaneously evokes the rare and the new person who was van Gogh, as also the enormity of the new aspect of the current and future art of painting?

Ossip Zadkine
I repeatedly told myself that the life of Vincent van Gogh and his colossal oeuvre – are not an individual outburst but a special and rare occurrence based on the special bond between the two brothers, only broken by Vincent's suicide.

Ossip Zadkine
This exchange – mainly in the form of letters [between the brothers van Gogh] – was not only about painting and art, but covered everything to do with one's existence and the philosophical or religious colouring, in a word: for the reader of the letters written by Vincent to his brother a total of human behaviour is revealed that of the dual being of van Gogh. This is how my first wish and then obsession was started, to build a monument for the two van Gogh brothers.

Ossip Zadkine