Man of Faith

Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of you can’t’ once and for all.

Thierry Noir’s Faces, East Side Gallery, Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany

Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas.

East Side Gallery, Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany

But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily.

East Side Gallery, Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany

He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, “defiles” — they say.

Dmitri Vrubel’s My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love , East Side Gallery, Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany

Let them talk, those cold theologians.

Rosemarie Schinzler’s Doves of Peace, East Side Gallery, Berlin Wall, Berlin, Germany

From Vincent van Gogh’s Letter to Theo (1884)

Lowest of the Low

What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low.

Cambridge Heath Road, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, E1

All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.

Highgate Hill, Archway, Islington, N19

That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion.

Seville Place, Dublin, Dublin 1

Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.

Caroline Street, Limehouse, Tower Hamlets, E1

I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners.

Long Street, Shoreditch, Hackney, E2

And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

Dock Road, Brentford, TW8

Vincent van Gogh’s Letter to Theo (1882)