Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch

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

"Weissenbruch to Vincent van Gogh: ..now that I have seen your work, I will take sides for you. They call me 'the sword without mercy', and I am - and I would not have said anything like that to Anton Mauve about you if I had not found any good in your sketches."

"I am here the doctor [in his studio], bringing his morning visit. I feel them all [his watercolors] the pulse. One I say: Wait, I'll make you an ointment, so you will refresh completely. The other I say: Friend, you need air, and even more the light."

"Also about J.H. Weissenbruch I can't keep silent - in spite of the fact they have been banished his works to the upper [exhibition] room. It may be true that one wishes them to be a little more worked-through, and somewhat less crude in hue, but he is exceeding many others [at the exhibition] concerning the broadness and power of the effect and the expression of the oppositions between the light in the air and the deep hues of the landscape.."

"Of course I should be very happy to sell a drawing but I am happier still when a real artist like Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch says about an unsalable??? study or drawing: 'That is true to nature, I could work from that myself.'"

"I now have permission, so long as Mauve is ill or too busy with his large painting, to go to Weissenbruch if I need to know something, and W. told me that in no way should I be worried about the change in M.'s mood. I also asked W. what he thought of my pen drawings. Those are your best, he said. And I told him that Tersteeg [director of art-seller Goupil, branche The Hague] had criticized them. Take no notice of it, he said, when Mauve said there was a painter in you, Tersteeg said no, and Mauve took your side against Tersteeg, and I was there, and if it happens again, I too will take your side, now that I've seen your work.. .I consider it a great privilege to visit such clever people as W. once in a while, especially when they take the trouble - as W. did this morning, for instance - to take a drawing they're working on but haven't finished yet and to explain how they set about doing it. That's what I need."

"The Holland School [very probably the Hague School ] is doing well. There are here two watercolors from J.H. Weissenbruch which I find exceptional beautiful.. .One of the Weissenbruch's is a mill along a canal, blue sky with a small cloud, behind which the sun is hiding. The other one is a canal with boats in the evening, in the moonlight. It is an artist of great class, but Tersteeg [Herman Gijsbert Tersteeg, later director at Goupil's in The Hague] says he is unsaleable. (translation from 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."

"..he is never guilty of sentimentality in paint. He early learned the importance of judicious elimination in the interest of power, and persistently put this principle into practice. His characteristic canvases show a stretch of sand, with the sea beyond and the sky above, and possibly but a single sail in the distance; or an expanse of green meadow, with' a tree or two or a windmill to break monotony; or a sedge-lined canal, with a lighter or two as the only suggestions of human interest. In a word, absolute simplicity of composition, without an unnecessary detail to break the impression he wishes to convey is an essential feature of his best canvases."

"I remember I stood stunned as a boy, in front of the paintings of the old [Dutch] masters in our museums, how they let speak Nature to you. If I have learned to see nature by someone, it was by our old masters. But most by Nature itself. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"Better send in one good picture than a lot of poor ones, but then that good one must be so good that it almost walks out of the frame and becomes a portion of nature itself."

"You see I am like a surgeon in a hospital; all these [sketches / watercolors] lying around me are my patients, and as I walk about among them I notice those most in need of doctoring. I pick out some sickly looking specimen and say to myself, 'Only wait a moment, and I will find some remedy for you'; some need much medicine, and some even require a severe operation to bring them round. Look at that one in the corner. I believe it is suffering from jaundice, but doubtless I shall find a cure for it."

"I was a healthy, strong, cheerful boy, and like to take great walks in and around The Hague.. .I sometimes got a blow from Nature. And if I got such a blow later, I could draw and paint what I saw. I recorded it in a few scribbles."

"When it is storming and raining, thundering and lightning I am in my element; nature must be seen in action. Then outside, I put on my jacket, put my feet in clogs, put on a hat and start on a march. When the showers settle down, with charcoal or black chalk [I] make a scribble, to keep a firm grip on what one sees. When working out, hue and color come smoothly back into the memory."

"My good Lord and friend Sala, - [I] enjoyed the blissful pleasure enjoyed by your friendship.. .When I reached the city [The Hague] again yesterday, I have taken the fishes out of the basket more than 12 times, to show them.. .That day, friend Sala, belongs among the most pleasant of my life, all moments have kept me alive until now, always sitting [fishing] in the boat, swaying with the bobbers in the field of view.."

"Weissenbruch to Anton Mauve: He [ Vincent van Gogh ] is drawing damn well, I could paint after his studies."

"Light and air, that's art! I can never give enough light in my paintings, especially in the skies. The air in a painting, that is really a thing! It is the main thing! Air and light are the great magicians. It is the sky which prescribes the painting. Painters never look enough at the sky. We must get it from above. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"