Painters From The Netherlands

"In the end, his paintings have become very beautiful viewing-boxes of life. The [painting] 'Pants of Meuke' is perhaps the most striking example of an object that represents a complete life for my father. You see in the paintings exactly how he was fascinated by those people. That is because he was in that trade [of rags and old metals] with exactly those kind of people. Look at the [textile] fabrics, the tissues and the colors they contain. That gave him the opportunity to create beautiful compositions. He used the materials from his daily life to tell his own story [about them].. .When you are standing in front of a painting like the one with the 'Hats' [painted by Jopie in 1978], you are entering an universe of stories and thoughts. There is not always that much thinking about it. Because my father was someone who was very self-evident in himself. Like a fish does not realize it is in the water, until it lies on the land and thinks: 'Oh God, where is my water'. He was always in his 'own water'.. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"I feel responsible, because so many people are leaning against me. Of course I can not take that pole away from them, they will fall over. I can see that those people need it! An ongoing struggle, an ordeal - because, if I say something I have to make it happen. In this way, painting is a religious matter. My paintings create a consciousness that offers comfort.. .It must appear in the light. Somebody of eighty years old who never ever would think about visiting a museum. Recognition! (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Over the years I kept everything and anything from stuff and things that I came across during my life in trade, if they had emotional value to me. Always the simple goods and tools, from the farmers, the blacksmith, the carpenter, the baker and so on. I loved those things most in which I saw reflected the struggle for life very clearly.. ..old used up shoes, trousers, jackets, hats and children's vests, which I found in the rags, often patched up endlessly. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"I was sitting in the barn, drawing a dead bird which I had put on a box. Then the barn door opened and Kees entered [an old iron-merchant, already retired] .. ..He came down next to me.. ..After a short silence he said: 'Are you painting? '.. .. it looks somewhat like that bird'. I said: 'To me that means a compliment Kees, because I am trying to draw that bird.' Stunned, he looked at me and asked, "Why are you doing that?" What could I answer? I said: Actually, I don't know myself'. Then he hoisted himself to his feet and said, I'll bring you the stuff next Monday' and he went to the door.. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"As far as transience is concerned.. .You see the whole story in those shoes, that's why I paint them so accurate. The physical attitude; crooked legs, a lump. Those shoes were talking to me, and then I thought: I can see that you were so and so big, but did you also had a wife? Children? What were you doing? And what really mattered to me is my own place between them. Between those stories, that mystery. That pitch-black background [in Jopie's paintings, till c.1979-80] - I had found it. A cry for attention. Those pants, that shirt, that background, that was: here I am. But then it become mannerism. So I carried on realistically but avoiding the black background at all costs. It is as Rutger Kopland says: Whoever found it did not look well. Now I want to paint people like this, like they are made of colored mud. Color spiritualizes. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"In 1946 it was the first time I saw a Van Gogh, a painting from his years in France. It was excactly what I had always felt here [in the fields of Friesland]: infinity, the unimaginable. I was bewildered and thought: who has been painting here for God's sake? Pink stripes in a green sky, you can't imagine! Ultramarine and carmine in the soil with a big yellow sun behind it.. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Just six kilometers – never my world was bigger than that, actually. That starting time [of his painting & drawing, c. 1946], to which I return now; watercolor; I prefer a bit foggy, a small world - and not the cows themselves, but only their traces in the mist. The tenderness.. .I am currently [1993] deeply immersed in little trees and in the reeds. You have to experience it as mysticism, as a miracle. And afterwards: passing it on.. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"One afternoon I went to visit him. [Jacob, an older and close friend of Jopie - a real freebooter]. I knew he was home, I took pen, ink and my sketchbook with me and did half a liter of gin in my pocket. He lived in the back of an alley and was sitting in his chair by the window.. ..I told him, 'You will get the whole bottle, but one condition. I want to make a beautiful drawing of you, so first you have to sit still for twenty minutes and look at me closely. If I look at you and you don't look at me, the deal is over.. ..'Okay', he said. I never had a model like him before.. .Stock-still he sat.. ..and looked at me without a single blink of his eyes. Within half an hour he was there on the paper - razor-sharp.. .While I am writing this down, it is as if he is sitting in front of me again.. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Father was a beautiful person, Otherwise I couldn't have paint him like that [Jopie points to the portrait of his father in the living-room, hanging next to his mother's]. Painted in seven hours. On a Saturday. About three months before my mother had died. Three times [during the painting-session] he stood up: 'Are you getting ready, finally?' The way I am talking about them is just how you see them here. He was a skipper of mud, afterwards a farmer. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"In 1973 I suddenly came into major private problems. I was completely thrown back on myself. Then I found those trousers between the old stuff. A worn-out, eighty times repaired, filthy pair of pants of a milker. I saw myself in it, it reflected the state of my soul. Then I took it with me and painted it [title: Pants of a cow milker]. Moreover because other because people recognized themselves in it, this has become my salvation. I found back my identity through it. As a matter of fact a self-portrait. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"..because of self-preservation, selfishness and the urge for happiness love has prevailed in me, and in that way everything becomes enchanted and even an old dirty, discarded doll transforms in something that can move you. The attention I gave it [in his painting: 'Rag doll', 1975], together with the attention you give it, ensure that it is no longer doomed, not alone any more. If there is any background connected to my artwork, it is this. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"I worked for months on this painting [title 'The Stone-wheelbarrow of C. Adema', 1977], for instance that well-bucket on the wheelbarrow I painted a twenty times or more, and it is constructed exactly as nature has shaped it. I want to make it harder and harder for myself. 'That's how it is' doesn’t exist for me. Deepening, that's what it is all about. My wish is to make in due time a small painting in which I can hardly discover any longer that it is painted, that it is just there, like that. Just something very simple. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"I used to paint some things a few times, but I stopped, because I didn't get an answer. If the work has nothing to say to somebody else, I quit. I am not an idiot who is talking to himself and gazing at the tip of his brush. Painting you do together. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"The smaller the world, the better I feel. When the reed is around me, evil has disappeared from the world. I really shall paint the reed next year, I've seriously decided. A small area of reeds with some water under. And then it will appear [on the canvas] exactly in the way it will make one quiet. I will paint it outdoors because I don't have any imagination - by the way, I would find myself very cheeky if I did. I have nothing to add, I have nothing in me and I believe I must be well aware of that because that is my limitation, as a consequence of my temporality. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"And indeed, I believe I understand what he means: that man who is walking and standing there, gazing around silently and proudly, who lives here - he is showing me his secret, something there is nothing special to look at, his barns, where nobody lives, where the unused old stuff which he paints is living. He makes me realize that one does not see these things. They have forgotten, they don't exist for us. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"These are the shoes of old Yde, a bachelor. He has worn them for forty years. He repaired them from below and above, from the inside and the outside. He gave me his shoes, for a bottle of brandy. They protected his feet for forty years. When they broke down, he tore them up and put them back on again. He could have bought new ones, because he already got state pension. But he was married with his shoes. (translation, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Since Werkman's death an awareness of his relevance to contemporary graphic design has steadily emerged, and his work has lost nothing of its richness, spirit and optimism."

"You are an unknown person in Paris, but you don't have the right to stay unknown for ever, because your work really deserves it to be appreciated by a larger public than that in Groningen."

"[Werkman], the printer-painter.. .. who makes prints, in which the meaning of form and color comes completely into their own.. .In his prints he use the side of the hand-roller to draw with [in ink]. He is ad brake, and he makes a lot of witty raids. In this way he comes to print his 'hot printing', analogous to the current 'hot music'."

"Anyway, it is for sure that Hendrik [Werkman] wasn't absolutely unsuitable for businessman. As so many people he had two personalities, that of the businessman and that of the artist."

"Werkman's fine intuition for purity in art has made him the champion of modern art who fully understood Vincent's statement in [his] letter no. 429: 'Les vrais peintres sont ceux quie ne font pas la couleur locale' (in English: The real painters are those who do not create in local colors)."

"[Hendrik Werkman], a man with a craving for freedom manifest in his way of life, expressed in his work, who became an artist at the moment he was economically broken, deserted by everybody, considered a freak – at that moment he created a world of his own, warm, vivid and vital."

"Remembering the time when I met Werkman in the printing house and saw him working, the memories come back how he cut his templates for example. He used a small razor blade, broken in half and wrapped with a small piece of paper. In his hands it was almost like a pencil stump, making a sketch with it. By drawing his lines with the razor blade he cut the template at the same moment. Sometimes he made a drawing beforehand, but usually he cut directly – and he did very skillfully."

"For me, life would be worthless if there was not modern art and if I did not had the opportunity to express myself in it anyhow, now that I have gradually found the way I can express myself."

"..not the familiar paradise, but the unknown - somewhere in a continent that hasn’t been discovered yet by anyone from the civilized countries - I have escaped [in his prints!] because it is almost unbearable to be in our world."

"I never have to search for subjects, they come to offer themselves - the right form is not always there immediately and that is why it is good to draw those small sketches beforehand. Otherwise it will become too wild, the work demands great calmness and if I am bound to time - for example when Greet [his wife] thinks that I should come home earlier - [then] it starts thundering, because peace has disappeared."

"This afternoon I just finished a print which I started Monday. We got a revolving door here in the post office [in the city Groningen] and that's such a nice thing to use."

"I have composed here so many prints from the immediate surroundings around me - starting with the chimneys and the pigeons and the passing ships, the staircase, the labyrinth of corridors and doors, the crazy combinations of beams and wooden walls.."

"one print gets born from the other one, and that is exactly the right thing of it - it keeps the mind ready."

"Last week we made a bike ride along cornfields with the harvest ready to be brought in. Here and there it was already brought in. Heavily loaded cars rolled back home, and it sounds so nice when the car comes after you.. ..and what a fruit tree loaded with ripening fruit. It is all full of promises and full of mild softness. As you say, it is the late-summer melancholy.. ..moreover one can weep for this dying everywhere on the fields, without any mercy."

"I will keep for you the small drawings that I usually make beforehand. They don't have any artistic value. I just make them to have some grip for the composition of the print.."

"The subject reports itself, it is never looked for. Afterwards a small drawing will follow for the color-planes which are determined immediately. These colors will be printed by large logs and updated and enlivened with the hand-roller. For pressing I use an old hand-press with lever (from c. 1800).. .Sometimes it is necessary to press heavily, other times only very light. Sometimes one half of the block is rolled in [with ink] bold, the other half only skimpy. By first printing sometimes the first layer of paint on a piece of paper, a gentle tint appears which is then printed on the original. Another time I print the first print of the paper back on the original.. .As soon as the color-planes have been applied, the first state is reached, so to say.. ..Of course all kinds of side-steps can be made, while working. In case of enlivening the picture - both in terms of color or decoration - the main goal I always keep in mind."

"As paint I use lightfast printing ink, usually pure, but also mixed. Mixing is not difficult at all, it but can happen in very different ways. Secret means are not applied, but I can not work on them, except in solitude (at sunshine). No one works in this way. I believe that no one else can obtain the same color effects, except after a lot of practice and experience. Sometimes one print goes up to 50 times under the printing-press. [I make] Never more than one piece per day."

"Moreover the book 'The Legend of Baal Shem', by Martin Buber gives beautiful images. I have read some chapters from it and the 'Werewolf' among others, has been written very beautifully."

"It was a tough job [the 20 prints of his 'Chassidic Legends']; I have been working effortlessly and incessantly [during 1941-1943]. But it was fascinating and the job gave me also relaxation. Now that it is finished, I can look back on it as a part of my life. I am happy that I have been able to accomplish the work, although there will come critical comments too. You can not escape that, even if you are doing your best best."

"..When I have made some drawings I see them immediately in front of my eyes, enlarged [and] in colors.."

"Last Sunday we made a bicycle tour of 80 km. Through the North along the edge of the [[w:Groningen (province|province [Groningen]..]] ..On such a day I get again a lot of impressions which will reappear in altered forms in due time. Beautiful landscapes, nice small roads, beautiful farms, meadows with horses and cattle, birds, water and a lot of sunshine. Mills and towers and trees are breaking the lines of the flat land.."

"There the telephone is ringing again - the engine, the machines [of the printing company] that call you with their sounds - those people who honor and tease [you] with their orders and admonitions - the chiefs who ask - the bills that have to be paid - the interest that force you to work."

"GRONINGEN, BERLIN, MOSCOW, PARIS 1923 Start of the violet season Reader As we are convinced that it is not too LATE, we will speak. Time is running, honestly.. ..it has become necessary now to do something, before it is too late There must be witnessing and speaking.. ..Art is everywhere. She is thrown us people on our jackets by the birds. In every infant with weak intestines, the latent seed is laid for an artist.. Our first publication will soon be published. We urgently invite you to become a fellow reader [of the upcoming art-magazine 'The Next Call'].. .. We count on your DEEDS in the white season with the black shadows.."

"I have applied for a pass and I am going to travel through Western Europe for 5 days. [I] start in Cologne and will probably end in Paris. Who cares. In Cologne there is a large exhibition of German painters [especially Die Brücke-artists]. Jan W. [= Jan Wiegers, who knew Kirchner very well since 1920] has been there and animated so much that I'm going there for a while.. ..it seems that Jan wants to come with me. He was so enthusiastic that I suspect to be able to note him as my traveling companion."

"the art-critic has provided the products of my lab with a (new) label: 'abracadabra'.. ..[but] one can not speak about abracadabra-ism, and that is its advantage on all –isms: it doesn't know time and limits and especially not the 'periods of time' [but] only seasons.. ..all -isms are dead, blown away, sprayed in the air, gone (here imagery does not fit, imagery is always wrong) - only for the 'abracadabra' is the future wall, the coming wall in the next house - how much the 'peinture' of other fabrics is curving and folding itself, polished or blown-up, it's all for nothing.. .We are not addressing those offspring but only the artists in this world.."

"hobade he - hobade há, habone de - habone da, tomate pe - tomate pa, coquille ki - coquille ku, trankielje ti - trankielje tu, bombade bè - bombade ba, salate te - salate ta, horbide de - horbide da, sperate ke - sperate ká, hosade de - hosade da, ad fundum hà – ad fundum ho, ho ho ho ho – ha ha ha ha, (dacapo po)"

"At a given moment there comes a time that you kick off everything, the whole mess and relieved you are walking further the path. Then the temptations come: Shouldn't I do this in another way, shall I go back and start to accept that I am a fool. Then bite your teeth firmly and say to yourself: no, stupid fool, don't go back, because what you will lose is profit."

"Marie is already 4 weeks in Vorden [Summer of 1875], painting under the guidance of the first landscape painter we have here Bilders. I am curious about the fruits of her labor. I must say that she does the work with great zeal, at the cost of her [white] complexion! She will come back as a half Javanese, I think. I am happy for her that she is given a different guidance than she had now from Bosboom [in The Hague], because that became too much modern for me. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"[ Johannes Bosboom was..] the friend of her first art-works, her source of information and on whom she could fall back, the one who helped her to believe in herself and finally the man who seized her with a firm grip from the drift paths of the young ladies' existence, onto the way of the royal art. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I am glad I have that artistic life in me.. .[I'm] a nobody in my field of art.. .I don't overestimate myself at all, and that's why I can't get that comfort from my work [landscape painting], which the Great [artists] have in their field of art. What else to say! 50 years after my death!! I laughed about it. Do you think they will remember me after only one year? [after her death] Dear heaven! No, that is really my least concern. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I tell you that I learned from experience. Have you once consulted with yourself – have you once made your decision, don't leave it anymore, otherwise you will become like a weather-cock, and dissatisfied with yourself. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"He [ Johannes Warnardus Bilders ] 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)."

"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)."

"An architect, who was a great lover of art, once said to the writer [= E.B. Greenshields himself!] 'From that point of view, Bosboom is all wrong. He does not draw correctly from the architect's standpoint, but he does something far more difficult and much finer. He gives us the effect of airy atmospheric spacious interiors. He reaches the end he sought splendidly, and produces wonderfully beautiful and poetical pictures, but not architectural drawings."