Barend Cornelis Koekkoek

"[Nature] only give it you, when you carefully consider its majesty and greatness. Does it not present beautiful scenes in front of your eyes that impossibly could be described to you by somebody else?.. ..[scenes], which you can try to realize afterwards in your room on the canvas or panel. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"For a landscape painter.. ..simple natural scenes can also be delightful, as romantics does. Perhaps even more instructive, because the eye can find a more elementary harmony in it.. ..that's how the solemn [[w:Emmerich am Rhein|[river] Rhine for Emmerik]] was there to me; how very simple the scene nevertheless was, I found it very beautiful.. .Truly beautiful."

"Fortunately however, is that [painting] school where Mother Nature is placed in the foreground, and where only she is consulted to representate 'truth' on the canvas or panel. Only he knows the secrets of the manifold diversity of nature. His painting is a faithful copy of nature - which is the highest praise for a painter.."

"Shall I now ask these palette-slaves what poetry means, and in how many forms it appears to us? They want to chain her [poetry], just as they are tied up themselves to their master's palette, [or] to some part of the sacred history.. ..to a folktale.. .. a miraculous landscape .. .. or other pompous imaginations."

"In my opinion the aim of the painter is similar with that of the poet, insofar that both want to affect the feelings of the viewer or reader. As soon as their scenes.. ..are lacking the mark of nature, of truth, than both will fail to realize it. The Dutch painter feels - as well as the Germans do - the influence of sublime nature, but the Dutch painter first wants to be acquainted with 'plain truth', to combine it afterwards with the poetic.."

"..on the banks of a very picturesque mountain stream that pours out its crystalline water in four or five waterfalls into the Dussel brook.. .Oh, in this cave, at this crystal flood, I often felt myself so well! Sensations frequently welled up in my bosom at this blessed place that ennoble the soul and make pour out joyful tombs; [they] give the heart impressions that neither greatness or honor can steal from us. An indomitable longing came to me, to learn more and more about these enchanting shades of beautiful and holy nature, and to transfer them on the canvas with my brush."

"I really believe that the general, happy mood of the people here [in Elberfeld, Germany] is largely caused by nature. At least I am experiencing that in places like these people are much more natural than in regions where nature offers them little or nothing to subtract their heart for some time from the hypocrisy of the world, and to taste a not-deceitful delight."

"Beforehand I don't make any drawing of the object or objects which I want to paint on the canvas or panel.. ..but I start directly to situate the designed plan on the canvas - After having thoroughly sketched and thought over my composition, especially the arrangement of light and dark, I start to paint it broadly with oil-paint and try as much as possible to achieve the hue or the colouring, in which I want to see my landscape.. ..when it is definitely completed."

"Immediately and definitively [after starting a painting] I determine the effect of sunlight, day and shadow, without being concerned with any detail. This enable me to see in the started painting the whole of it, which my mind already saw before I begun to work - I see it appearing on the panel or canvas rather soon and can consider in this way the harmony of the composed objects and colors."

"The free artist must also have the spunk to tear himself away from his first ideas, for experience teaches us that these [ideas] are not always pure, but often false."

"The pursuit of perfection in art must always be a noble duty to the artist, but.. .Here [at the Drachenfels ] he feels, more than in any other place, too vividly his inability.. .Stop it, painter! Just please yourself with the impression it makes on your soul; try, if you can, to keep this impression pure, it will teach you how to create ..."

"Do you like to see what can be transformed from a flat, elementary rural scene - bearing the stamp of nature, the mark of truth - into something most beautiful and graceful? Look at the works of our great [painter] Schelfhout. There you will find represented plain nature at the most elegant, but moreover with a faithfulness and truth, which only Schelfhout can represent."

"..it is a masterpiece [painting of B. C. Koekkoek: 'View on the Woods' 1839, with sizes 176 x 160 cm], a well-executed brave undertaking to imagine something like that on a large scale with such an elaborateness. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Koekkoek started the canvas in an uniform hue: carmine, sea blue and then, when finishing it, he puts down the hue he want to give the ice.. .Then he places upon that the details of the snow, the traces made by the skaters, the cracks in the ice, the branches of the trees, the stones: after that come the reflections of the figures, houses, trees, etc. People frequently placed (sic) large blocks of ice in the foreground and nearby a hole in the ice, to dip their water."

"[B.C. Koekkoek] tended to set small figures in vast landscapes with deep valleys, inhospitable crags and proud castles; these scenes are made more dramatic by the strong contrasts between light and dark, as in 'View in the Rhine Valley' and 'Landscapes near Cleves with a Fire', 1846."

"'Forest View' represents a level that few of his contemporaries were capable of attaining. The effect of the setting sun's warm light on the trees, for instance, is done with great expertise. The idyllic mood of a warm summer's day is heightened by the languidly ruminating cattle in the right foreground. On the left, near a little waterfall, a woman is conversing with a man on horseback, observed by a few shepherdesses at the foot of the huge oak. Even the heavily laden donkeys seem unaware of their burdens."