A statement attributed to the Netherlands artist was widely dispersed on the Internet. We decided to check if Van Gogh said something like that.
This phrase indicating authorship Van Gogh Found On many sites With selection quotes of famous people. It is posted by users social networks ("VKontakte" Twitter, Instagram*) And Platform blog (Livejournal, "Zen"). On the Internet you can find a lot pictures With this statement and attribution to the artist. The phrase is discussed by visitors to the services questions And answers, it is found even in artists dedicated to artist in Media And in art literature modern authors.
Vincent Van Gogh led active correspondence - With his brother Theo, friend and mentor Anton van Rappard, artists by Gauguin and Emile Bernard and many others. After his death, 820 letters written by various addresses were preserved, although researchers note that, apparently, about 2000 messages wrote in all of his life. The correspondence served him with an alternative to diaries, which, as far as is known today, the artist did not lead. All the letters preserved after his death were digitized and laid out in database Museum of Van Gogh in Amsterdam with translation into English.
The quote about normality has spread in the English-language segment of the Internet earlier than in the Russian-speaking, in the following wording: “Normalyity is a well-Pted Street; it is good for Walking - But No Flowers Will Grow There. " However, “verified” could not find anything similar to this phrase in the database of letters. Moreover, in the letters there is neither the word Normality, nor the expression of the Well-Pted Street. Van Gogh wrote a lot about the flowers, but never in such a context. We could not find this quote indicating the authorship of Van Gogh and in memories contemporaries of the artist.
The earliest mention of this phrase in connection with the name of the artist, which “verified” was found, appeared on Superobed catalog Exhibitions artist Vincent Van Gogh. Between Earth and Heaven. The Landscapes, which was held in the Basel Art Museum in Switzerland in 2009. At the same time, the compilers do not indicate where exactly the quote was taken from.
Van Gogh died in 1890, all his preserved letters, later included in the Museum database in Amsterdam, were for the first time published In 1914. It is unlikely that in 2009, more than a hundred years after the death of the artist, new written sources belonging to his hand and containing this quote appeared. At least, in this case, the world media would definitely write about this sensation, which did not happen. Therefore, based on the data available today, we can conclude that the quote was assigned to Vincent Van Gogh the drawers of the catalog erroneously.
*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Photo on the cover: Photo of the self -portrait of Vincent Van Gogh, Villem van de Polle, CC0, Via Wikimedia Commons
Incorrect attribution of quote
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