Painters From The Netherlands

"Thijs knew everything by himself, he was a genius. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"When I'm sitting in front of my easel again.. .I'm going to make things that no one would have expected of me. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"a couple of days afterwards I was sitting somewhere and painting - when one of these braggarts came up behind me. Well, hey, when you're young, you don't think that's very nice. And suddenly the guy throws his arms around me and roars: 'I sit here all day long plodding away with a pencil - scratching and scratching - and you get it right away!' It was ...Mauve."

"I don't paint cows but light"

"At Heyser [a pub in The Hague] came the venerable old guys [painters]: Smit-Cranz, Coelman a. o. Those were the bigwigs, you see. We were the revolutionaries. And an opposition that we got! - In 't Kurhaus they hang a poster against us during our first exhibition; they named us 'mud painters'. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"As far as I can remember, it was before my twelfth year that I was sketching cows in the mornings before and afternoons after school, and because my brothers were 4 and 6 years older than me – naturally I got from them my first teachings in drawing and later in painting. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"..and to my great pleasure I heard that the work 'The Wodan's Oaks' (at my brother's home), had also struck you so much. I think this is almost the most beautiful painting Bilders has made. I know that many of our artists have also been struck by it at Goupil's [art-seller in The Hague]. Among others Jacob Maris has spoken about it so warmly. And if one remembers that Bilders was [already] 75 when he made this! After the Wodan's oak - (?) to his Paradise.. [4 years later he died] (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"The cow exists for the light that comes to glide along and over the animal - the light doesn't exist for he cow."

"'Weiss' always said it so well: 'When you go outside, it's like getting a punch against your chest.. hey ..damned, that's beautiful!!' And that's why we made so many beautiful things in our studio in the Juffrouw Idastraat in The Hague city. The studio was not very special. It was noisy. But going outside suddenly, that moved you so strongly.. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Here in Oosterbeek, Bilders frequently worked behind the church, in the lower village, where then you could still find beautiful picturesque spots and old huts. He also worked a lot near the watermill of woman Gerritsen, well known to all painters of those days, and he was never able to forgive the rich Amsterdam guy who devastated that beautiful corner, to turn it into an ordinary villa. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Our trips in Drenthe [in 1878-79] he [Johannes Warnardus Bilders] enjoyed a lot, but Vorden and especially Oosterbeek remained the places he loved most. Drenthe was too new for him. The most beautiful painting he made of it were 'the Hunnebeds', a fusain in my possession. He found back again Hobbema everywhere. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I believe that in our country Bilders' art is entirely self-contained and has not generated a particular school, despite the educational and moral strength which his art expressed. But man is inclined to compare, and that's why I believe Théodore Rousseau may be called Bilders' elder brother. Bilders' 'Wodans oaks' paintings.. ..[are] as beautiful as many by Rousseau. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"He painted – was living in Utrecht, [he] immediately attracted attention and had many ideas, got good prices for that time; and once he thought 'Is this really beautiful, as people say - but the people are crazy or I am - I came to the conclusion – the people are wrong - picked up my things and went to Oosterbeek' [Autumn of 1841, where he thoroughly started to study nature: branches, stems, plants. Etc..] (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Being self-taught and striving for a broad, fresh original concept of art himself he thought he could not warn Mesdag enough, to be on his guard and not to become a 'little Roelofs'; to point him to look above all with his very own eyes. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Even though many have seen Bilders studying nature with the greatest zeal and the noblest enthusiasm of studying nature, everyone will realize that an artist with such a poetic soul, processing his impressions, did not give what is called a faithful, elaborate imitation of nature.. .In our imagination we see Bilders, whom we saw so often at work, with a large pallet and broad brushes, standing at a certain distance from his canvas.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I doubt whether Bilders' great talent ever reached its full development. He stood alone, absolutely alone. The phlegmatic painters who were content slavishly to copy nature, the eminent painters of fields and cattle had little or nothing in common with him and the studies which were sold at the auction held in the studio of the late Mrs. Bilders-van Bosse, his second wife, prove that he felt a longing for more colour, that, directly or indirectly, he had experienced the influence of a Delacroix."

"As far as I can remember, it was about 25 or 26 years ago that Breitner [his pupil then] painted with me in 'Huize Rozenburg' [The Hague].. .There I had a large garden where he painted his dragoons with horses, posing there in front of him.."

"In the morning, at the edge of a luminous horizon, the [painting] 'Ferry' of Mr. Maris mixes sky and water like amorous mouths.. ..oxen cross the shimmering lake, and in their misty vapors the villages in the distance awake in a clear shade. A ravishing canvas without any dullness. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Last week I was with Bilders.. .I saw a beautiful landscape of him, the village Vorden, illuminated by the evening twilight, with Cows in the Foreground. very poetical, and the true color of Father Bilders, as always.- (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"oh God, oh Lord, what a revelation! Where I am slaving away [at a sketch] with a fine piece of conté [crayon], you make emerge color and unity with only a piece of chalk [and] a few scrapes!(translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"People call this beautiful? - no, they are crazy, or I am mad! – How I learned now at Oosterbeek [c. 1834-36 that I should look at Nature completely different! In the beginning I could not make anything good; I soon realized that I had to start all over again."

"Just start, your palette will help you. (if you worried about a painting or dread to start painting"

"..buried soberly, as simple as a child of the people, as I am."

"Yes, of course you want every shot to be a duck-bird [a dead bird?]"

"The last two days I have not painted on [his painting of] the Castle [in Vorden!] It is lying now on the roof to dry. it looks terribly gloomy.. .Good-bye, dear Miss. I still have to read in the great German philosopher Schopenhauer, a man who thought that all the misery he saw in life was created by an evil spirit who created this earth. - Good night, dear Miss, it is 2 o'clock in the night, already and the letter must still be mailed by post. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"This afternoon I had put myself down on this sweet spot, very tired of painting [with a view of the old castle of Vorden] .. .. I was completely immersed in thinking of You.. .I would rather like to.. ..thank you, dear and beloved Lady, for the right judgments and remarks which You gave me in this [your?] sweet letter. I solemnly promise you that I will use them for my benefit, and will spent all my powers as an artist, to make your attentions more worthy to me. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"I agreed with my father's servant, to travel secretly to Greece [c. 1825-26], to help them in their War for freedom against the Turks]; everything was ready for the journey, but then my father discovered our intentions. On that occasion I got my first and only beating."

"The exception is Matthew [= Matthijs, in Dutch] Maris.. .It is perfectly impossible to be certain of anything produced by this remarkable artist. One day a figure, next day a head, another time a windmill landscape, and again a town or village."

"..This master, one of the seers of the century, and a recluse resident in one of the most populous districts in London, has painted almost always his own ideas as compositions, and has practically avoided the obvious amongst his surroundings.. ..the subjects of Matthew Maris have been crystallisations of his dreams. Blown on the canvas, as it were, with practically no trace of the machinery of paint visible to distract, all the pictures of this mystic artist have soared to a height above the more material arrangements in his brothers' work [= Jacob Maris.] He has sought and found his inspiration from the least tangible of his surroundings, or from his heaven-born gift of exquisite dreams such as never materialise except to the seer whose life is hardly of this world at all."

"That splendid, head, in which everything is said that can be said; color, line, tone, expression; the slightly advanced head, with the soft, almost human eyes, I never enter my studio in the morning without my eye falling upon this creature and wishing it 'Good Morning'."

"Thijs knew everything by himself, he was a genius. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"He is the painter of the border land between the seen and the unseen world."

"It were mainly three or four [paintings] which kept him specifically busy [in the 1890's]. They were in progress for years already and he always spent hours and hours working on them - in which he wholly and truly disappeared into his work, persistently trying to perfect it in construction or composition and to saturate it with the life itself, of his soul - never satisfied with any result he achieved. Most of the time 'The Westmacott children' [and] 'The child with the Butterflies' were on his easel, and never they stayed the same with a next visit. They both had an expression that only he could give them. Sometimes, he acknowledged, he spent too many days working on one single work, with the inevitable danger of weakening his sensitivity by a lack of variety. Often it was sad to see that he could not leave them as they were.."

"Take, as example, the early picture of the artist, the 'Souvenir of Amsterdam', [painted in 1871,].. .This measures only 18 ins. by 13 ins.. .Yet it is no exaggeration to say that this small canvas contains the essential features of the great Dutch city with its good half million inhabitants. The tall houses, the canals, the 'ophaalbruggen [drawbridges]' towering over everything - as the bridge always does, and must do, in a land under the level of the sea - the distant buildings and shipping. Everything.. ..that the commercial Capital of Holland says to the visitor is concentrated on these few square inches.. .I wanted to discuss this picture with Mr. Maris, for its goldenbrown colour went straight to my heart from the moment I first saw it, now many [30] years ago, but the artist would have none of it. 'Only a pot-boiler, made to coin a little necessary money, and one of my suicides..' [he said]"

"As far as 'Melancholy' concerned, or as he liked to call it 'Evaporated Dreams', on that painting he worked most times during the last years of his life, when his eyes got less and less reliable. When he died the painting stood on his easel. Often he spoke about it with bitterness, as if it should express the nature of his own life. With his almost lost drawing [using no lines] and his subdued color, it sometimes seemed to me the saddest possible emblem of all the unhappiness of his fate."

"In the back of the garden of the hostelry where I am staying there is a settee; when one is sitting there you get precisely a nice view on the abandoned castle of Vorden. Often I see the old reverend clergyman sitting there, certainly for having a real rural view on the meadow, or for being able to turn his eyes to the old grayed-up walls of the castle, and coming in that way to the thought how all human labor is brought back to Nothing by the breath of the ages. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"I worked hard the whole day, so that I am very tired now. Yesterday I made the sketch of the castle [in Vorden] on the canvas and today I painted the sky, the whole day long. I made the composition even more simple by leaving out the creel; the air is painted in the spirit of the [ Swartzwald [?], but much more stronger and sadder. I hope to show the people how beautiful, how profoundly poetical the castle [is].. ..please save this thumbnail-sketch [drawn in the letter, on the same paper] and also my previous letter. Who knows the descendants - when reading them, and looking at the sketch - will say: Look, it was in this way how Bilder's very lovely painting was discussed at the House 't Velde, and how it came into life in Vorden. Good-by, my dear Lady.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Nothing has happened since two or three days.. ..nothing special, only the Ladies van Loon have visited me this morning, I have shown them a few of my studies, and talked a lot about and {[w|nl:Vorden|Vorden}}. Now I could tell you further, how little I still feel at home, how a certain nostalgia or quiet sorrow plunges me down, and how an indefinite hurry for an even more uncertain future dominates my whole [being?]; but why should I bother You by telling You my inner life.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Then - being in two minds - in my father's courtyard, I counted the buttons of my coat: soldier or painter, soldier, painter, soldier, painter.. ..the last button told me: painter. So it was decided by chance that I would become a painter [c. 1831]."

"..Besides of all things I hated and detested was painting. They told me I had a talent for it, and was a clever chap and could make as much money as I liked. Money always the principal thing and so it happens that I got forced into it. Being considered a very clever talented chap, after the war or siege of Paris [1870-71], a young fellow of the name of Vincent van Gogh [not painting yet, but still art-seller at Goupil in Paris] came around asking me for advice.. .The law of the pocket: 'full' signifies 'rich'; empty 'poor', all the world over the same; black, brown, yellow or white skinned. Heathen, barbarians, Mahommetans; pocket full, 'power' - empty, 'helpless'."

"I recollect after the war in '71 [in Paris, where he stayed then and was fighting against the German] there were some debts to pay of course: what had I to do? I said to Wisselingh [Dutch art-dealer] who was with Goupil, 'tell them that I'll take them back later on.' I've never been able to do so, for one Van Gogh [probably Vincent, then art-seller at Goupil], his partner, gave me 200 francs, someone bought it for 350, and sold it in America for 700 pounds. He had asked Wisselingh how long it had taken me to do [make] it; he said a week, so I was the chap for him; no wonder he was always talking making fortune, fancy 100 pounds per day, make some more or this sort: do it only for a year. So I had to commit suicides upon suicides [he means, making salable paintings]: what did it matter to him or anyone else ? Someone said once to me: 'You must have somebody fool enough to say, here is money for you, and go your own way': that is the very thing one may not do. There is always someone telling you how to set about, and then come the schools telling you that it is not allowed to be one's self, but that one has to be a Roman or Greek, or imitate what they have performed.."

"Some time ago I saw a painting by Thijs Maris that reminded me of it. An old Dutch town with rows of brownish red houses with step-gables and tall flights of steps, grey roofs, and white or yellow doors, window-frames and cornices; canals with ships and a large white drawbridge, a barge with a man at the tiller going under it.. .Some distance away a stone bridge over the canal, with people and a cart with white horses crossing it. And everywhere movement, a porter with his wheelbarrow, a man leaning against the railing, gazing into the water, women in black with white caps.. .A greyish white sky over everything..."

"My brother Jaap was born as a painter, which means he really enjoyed it. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Besides (and I now quote the artist's own words) I never put a bullet in my gun, but only pretended, to do so!"

"I liked the room [his new place in London, c. 1906] the moment I saw it, so here I am set up as a swell.. .Don't you take this to be a trap set up for the unwary, you know you're always touching a sore spot when you talk painting, and drag my suicides before the public, the right name for potboilers, one has to give up all aim for any good intention, and do the technical skill and cleverness to please those with halfpennies and farthings in their pocket, to be favoured to live.. .I just got a letter from somebody, saying: but with potboiling one can make money, money always considered to be the principal. I told him he was greatly mistaken, when a little honesty remains, one can scarcely ask anything for them."

"Matthijs started with the left eye, which - since he painted the portrait à trois quarts - is about the center of the bud. The [left] eye finished, he started to paint around it the details of forehead, nose, the right eye, the mouth, etc.. ..until he finally enclosed all of these with the contour of the head and the light-brown background. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Thijs, Thijs, you came to a people [of Paris], when they were doing well, now you must help them, when they are in distress. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"He has shown me aspects of silence and light as others never showed me before. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Last year I asked too much of my strength. I can't go on like this. it was not possible for me, I had to step back, I didn't make anything but stones [about his paintings?] ... They wanted to see beautiful paintings but I still couldn't make them, one illusion disappears for the other. I have made Cold reality, and I have made Truth. Is there a truth, also the cold reality is a truth. What exists between them was [only] baroque convention. I threw away everything in the stove.. .I am messing up my time with them; what is nothing more than material is no art to me; I could not bring it out.. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

".. And among them all [artist of the Hague School ] Weissenbruch holds a prominent place; for who depicts as well as he the effect of the sun struggling through stormy clouds, or who appreciates better the value of light and shade? Who under stands the variation in the very atmosphere, the many varieties of sunrise and sunset, and above all things, the sweet, suffused twilight? Who so skillful as he in giving a fresh construction to a well-worn subject, in finding ever new inspirations? Who remains so young and so enthusiastic? Who, indeed, but Weissenbruch, whose pictures fill us with delight and create an impression on our minds that is not easily forgotten."