people-from-rotterdam

"As a photographer, I try to reach beyond the differences in our genetic makeup to appreciate all we have in common with every other living thing. When I use my camera, I drop my skin like the animals at that cave so I can show who they really are. As animals blessed with the power of rational thought, we can marvel at the intricacies of life. As citizens of a planet in trouble, it is our moral responsibility to deal with the dramatic loss in diversity of life."

"“If something is between God and you, then you have a problem, an obstacle, I believe I have a huge mission to write, or to record, or to give to the world or to Christians or people who are not Christian yet."

"The words of... mathematical demonstration merely accompany a mathematical construction that is effected without words. At the point where you enounce... contradiction ...the construction no longer goes ...the required structure cannot be embedded in the given basic structure. ...[T]his observation, I do not think of as a principium contradictionis [principle of contradiction]."

"[T]he proposition: A function is either differentiable or not differentiable. says nothing; it expresses the same as... If a function is not differentiable, then it is not differentiable. But the logician... projects a mathematical system, and calls such... an application of the tertium non datur."

"The viewpoint of the formalist must lead to the conviction that if other symbolic formulas should be substituted for the ones that now represent the fundamental mathematical relations and the mathematical-logical laws, the absence of the sensation of delight, called "consciousness of legitimacy," which might be the result of such substitution would not in the least invalidate its mathematical exactness. To the philosopher or to the anthropologist, but not to the mathematician, belongs the task of investigating why certain systems of symbolic logic rather than others may be effectively projected upon nature. Not to the mathematician, but to the psychologist, belongs the task of explaining why we believe in certain systems of symbolic logic and not in others, in particular why we are averse to the so-called contradictory systems in which the negative as well as the positive of certain propositions are valid."

"Logic depends upon mathematics. ...[I]ntuitive logical reasoning ...remains if ...one restricts oneself to relations of whole and part; the mathematical structures ...do not justify any priority of logical reasoning over ordinary mathematical reasoning."

"[S]uppose... we have proved... that the logical system, built... of... linguistic axioms... is consistent [and] we find a mathematical interpretation... [D]oes it follow... that such a mathematical system exists? Such... has never been proved... Thus... it is nowhere proved that a finite number, subjected to a provably consistent system of conditions, must always exist."

"[I]t is easily conceivable that, given the same organization of the human intellect and... the same mathematics, a different language would have been formed, into which the language of logical reasoning... would not fit. Probably there are still peoples... isolated... for which this is... the case. And no more is it excluded that in a later... development the logical reasonings will lose their present position in the languages of the cultured peoples."

"In 1908 Brouwer introduced for the first time "weak counterexamples", for the purpose of showing that certain classically acceptable statements are constructively unacceptable (Brouwer 1908). Too much emphasis on these examples has sometimes created the false impression that refuting claims of classical mathematics is the principle aim of intuitionism."

"[W]heresoever in logic the word all or every is used mathematics... tacitly involves the restriction: insofar as belonging to a mathematical structure which is supposed to be constructed beforehand."

"[T]here exist no other sets than finite and denumerably infinite sets and continua... [I]n mathematics we can create only finite sequences, further by means of... 'and so on' the order type ω, but only consisting of equal elements... but no other sets."

"Life is a magic garden. With wondrous softly shining flowers, but between the flowers there are the little gnomes, they frighten me so much, they stand on their heads, and the worst is, they call out to me that I should also stand on my head, every once in a while I try, and I die of embarrassment; but sometimes the gnomes shout that I am doing very well, and that I’m indeed a real gnome myself after all. But on no account I will ever fall for that."

"Man, inclined to... a mathematical view.., has... applied this bias to mathematical language, and in former centuries exclusively to the language of logical reasonings: the science arising from this... is theoretical logic."

"Riemann was the first to show the right way for research on the by starting from the idea that space is a Zahlenmannigfaltigkeit, thus a system built... by ourselves. ...Pasch, Hilbert and others, because they considered ...[t]his hypothesis as arbitrary, resumed the logical foundation ...trying to better Euclid by constructing ...linguistic structures ...solely by ...logical principles. ...Such disturbing consequences follow when language, ...a means ...for the communication of mathematics, but which has nothing to do with mathematics ...except as an accompaniment, is considered essential, and when the laws governing the succession of sentences ...are seen as directives for acts of mathematical construction."

"Mathematics is independent of logic. ...Where mathematical objects are given by their relations to the ...parts of a mathematical structure, we transform these ...by a sequence of tautologies and thus proceed to the relations of the object to other components of the structure. ...The fact that ...a theorem is ...only understood after a chain of tautologies, proves merely that we build our structures too complicated to be comprehended in one view."

"With which mathematical notions a spoken or written symbol will be made to correspond... will... differ according to the milieu. ...[W]hich domains of mathematics will be accompanied by a language ...will depend ...upon ...which domains ...have found most applications to the guidance of action or as a means of understanding about action."

"[T]he idea that by... such linguistic structures we can obtain knowledge of mathematics apart from that... constructed by direct intuition, is mistaken. And more so is the idea that we can lay in this way the foundations of mathematics."

"[M]odern axiomaticians... have only built... linguistic systems... suitable to accompany constructible mathematical systems."

"Cantor and his disciples... think they have knowledge of all sorts of further sets; their fundamental principle... comes to about the same as the axiomaticians. ...[T]his principle is unjustified and... we assert that the several paradoxes of the 'Mengenlehre' [Set theory]... have no right to exist... [I]t would have been the duty of Cantorians, immediately to reject a notion which gives rise to contradictions, because it is... not built... mathematically."

"That painting with that man - that drunken man - was first a soup-distribution [on the streets], which I had seen, and for which I also made those studies of which you speak. Also failed; simply due to lack of perseverance. I have made another drawing of it, which V. Wisselingh found quite good and he afterwards sold to an American, and he does not know where it has gone. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Hartenstraat - the air is strong light - houses, illuminated from the top, left - flags translucent (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"..in an review of the exhibition in [[w:Arti et Amicitiae|Arti, [in Amsterdam] ]] you say that most of my submissions are not meant as a study. I don't know what you mean by study. I understand a study as a work I am painting directly after nature, with the aim hold on the casual tone,color and line. All of mine that is presented there, is immediately felt in nature and not one of the sketches is done by heart after received impressions for any paintings. I thought I had to tell you this, because then you might get a different view of it - whether you think they are more worthy or not because of this, I don't want to judge.. ..yours GH Breitner"

"Bosboom has just as anyone else fussed around things [paintings] from time to time to get his money. Only very few people can escape this.. .It is almost impossible that an artist who doesn't have the gift to work for the market as well, will always have to make good things. Because, when he has no money he has to earn it. And he will have to strain himself. For something he appreciates the least of all. He can never neglect this.. .The examples you can see everywhere. If you may write something about him [Bosboom] again, I hope you will take this into account too. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"It is just most delightful to me that I live in this way in the heart of Amsterdam. In a second you can eat somewhere and be back home again. You never have to wait for the tram. It is less than seven minutes [walking] from Dam Square. To me that is so unusual and so pleasant. I walk there daily.. ..the window [of his new studio] is about 2.25 m wide and high, and underneath a standing window of the same size, breadth-wise. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"This place [Breitner's new residential location at the Jacob van Campen-straat (De Pijp district), Amsterdam - a newly built street with construction activities all around], is just about the same as the Hobbema-straat, and that is precisely not the character of Amsterdam.."

"Today I visited Van Gogh's exhibition. I can not help it, but I think it's art for Eskimos, I can not enjoy it. I find it fairly crude and obnoxious, without the slightest distinction, and besides that everything is stolen from Millet and others. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I now have an abundance of models. Every woman I address on the street understands me pretty well. I never experienced anything like that, otherwise they always called me names. It is horrible that I don't have anyone [in Amsterdam] like you, because the only good I have heard about my works came from you. So visit me often. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Hartenstraat - 1 o'clock in the afternoon - the flags throw shadow on the houses"

"I learned from Nol that nowadays you [ Willem Witsen ] are especially engaged upon enlargements [of photos]. I would like to ask you if you perhaps have a piece of moorland (foreground) for me, I would be very grateful to you. Because I am working on a painting with a large foreground. You may have seen it, with that artillery in it. It must be a simple sloping ground. Without much frills of sand - etc. nothing but heather.. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Recently I dreamed of you [of the artist Herman van der Weele and his wife] and that you two were very rich and lived in a beautiful place and that I sat in your room with you and Herman, with beautiful fabrics and wallpapers that I couldn't stop looking to them and you wore black glasses, just like me now [to protect his eyes], but they [black glasses] were so amazingly beautiful and they suited you so well, as is only possible in a dream, and your dress was beautifully deep red blue black with exotic figures woven into it and the walls were yellow and pink. Anyway it was all a miracle of beauty and I wished that.. ..my eyes were healthy again and that we each could spent hundred thousand guilders a week, then we had built a beautiful yacht and we all sailed to the country of the Mikado [Japan], to have a look there. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Do you know what I really need to make a well-finished painting? 2 years at Gérome or somebody like him, working in the studio.. ..because that is the only way to become a good painter. That whole business.. then a small watercolour than a little painting and finally when I have earned so much that I could study, I have become too old and too miserable. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Be so kind and write me by return, with drawing and explanation, how I can make a [photo] camera. - as I then saw at your home. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Last Saturday it was a rainy evening. I took advantage of that to draw once again the whole evening at Dam Square all over and Sunday I repainted my painting [of Dam square] completely, that yellow nasty color has disappeared now completely. The work has become much broader, and I believe it is really finished now. When my model came, the change struck her so strongly that she said, 'sir, the painting has become beautifully now'. I myself am very happy with it, because I believe it is really good. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"In the works I paint [now] I can't see any guarantee that I shall make progress.. ..while better skilled people [artists] - even though their work does not seem so good at the moment - can move forward much more easily. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Yesterday I visited Rotterdam for a while.. .It is a beautiful city. Always turbulent, dirty and picturesque, especially the vest and the harbor-neighborhoods. For the newer city I don't care at all."

"If you want to help me, and I know you do, believe in me. And do not help to criticize or break me, as some people do gladly, who are indifferent or hostile [towards me].. ..You must have faith in me. Believe me. And if you want to believe someone about me, believe an artist, someone like Mesdag or Blommers or Maris [one of Breitner's teachers, c. 1880], but not Kuyper and the likes of him.. ..and hear what they say and put more value on the talk 'finish better' and 'he is stubborn' - from people who, let's be honest, actually know nothing about art. (The Hague, 1881)"

"Myself, I will paint the people in the street and in the houses, the streets and houses they have built, life in general. I will attempt to be 'le peintre du peuple' (the painter of the people), or rather I am that already, because I want to be. I want to paint history, and I will, but history in its' broadest sense. A market, a wharf, a river, a group of soldiers under a burning sun or in the snow.. (The Hague, 1882)"

"I did visit the Breitner exhibition and I enjoyed it very much. A real painter.. .And what a delightful colors, what a richness of wealthy grays and what is everything thrown upon it. Nevertheless I am happy that the world has more faces.. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"At Dam square [Amsterdam] we sometimes waited a long time for the horses he needed [for a new painting], four white horses which came back from the Haarlemmerdijk. Then he made sketches and I helped him to distract curiosity [of the people at Dam square]. Sometimes I did object to such a trip, when it was blowing hard or raining, but then he was in his element: 'But dude, don't you see how beautiful it is."

"..A market, a quay, a river. a gang of soldiers.. ..is just as good and more history than 'The cousins of Spinoza are visiting him accompanied by their mamma'. O! if I could say some time as Munkaczy: 'I painted almost everything I dreamed when I was 12 years old'. He can tell this, the man which I love as the greatest painter, whatever they may say here [in The Hague]. I hope that you once may see a true painting of me, not one of the many I shall have to make and which are [only] something, but a truly grandiose thing. All wasted fire. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"..and if you suddenly turn around, it seems as if the detachment of Breitner's cavalry [painting 'Upcoming Hussars'] is direrctly tearing up to you, because there is so much life in the painting. But you have to satisfy yourself with that first impression. The work doesn't withstand a further investigation; then the horses appear badly drawn, as also the horsemen who are more smudges than human forms. Breitner misses his goal by his his exaggeration of an direction which seeks to represent an impression full of unity and strength, and he lapses into the aberrations of Impressionism. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Some smudges of paint, which should be a flower market, a spot that had to imagine a drunkard leaning against the wall, and in which you - looking carefully - could still detect the true attitude. In those days he (Breitner, c. 1882-85) still thought that those painted spots represented the subject clearly enough, because he could see it all in them. He [also] talked about horsemen, running towards him from a hollow way, showed in a completely flat way [the large painting 'Cavalry' ], but I am not sure if I have already seen a kind of sketch of it at that time. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"What I consider to do with the new course [at The Academy of Art in The Hague] is: in the morning doing large plaster and in the afternoon painting or drawing after Nature, what I am doing already for some time, and [drawing] horses in the Municipal Horse Riding School. The Director is Sir Krüger, a very charming German who has seen of course many horses and so he knows how to show me the mistakes I make, which are not few. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"What wonderful weather it has been today, I had not been outside for so long and so I spent the entire day out of doors. Wonderful. Nature is always fresh and new and to stay fresh she is the only thing giving all that is necessary. Everything is rich. I mean, not only the outdoors, landscape or something like that, but simply everything, yes everything except your workplace, and not even excluding that. 'Le spectacle est dans le spectateur' (the spectacle is in the spectator). (The Hague, 1881)"

"I started reading Flaubert's 'Salambô'. The first chapter was very strong. I prefer Flaubert above Zola, the Concourt even more. No doubt you know the Concourts, Edm. and Jules, two brothers. 'Manette Salomon' is one of their most beautiful creations. If you could read that, I believe you do me and yourself a great pleasure. The type of Chassagnol, the man who understands so much about Art - yes, he has the purest ideas on art of all - I find [him] adorable. He understands everything and that's why he can not be an artist himself or the greatest. I recommend that book to anyone, layman or painter and I will buy it myself."

"My drawings for the art exhibition don't get finished and time is running out. 15 or 16 Dec. I believe. Of course they show soldiers once again and of course the people say that it looks like Neuville, although that man doesn't see any color. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I have also been working on the large canvas for a few months. and it has turned into a cavalry charge, which I hope for sure to be able to exhibit in Spring. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Yesterday it was divinely beautiful [at Scheveningen beach]. These barges lay in dense rows against the slope [of the beach], and between them one walked as between a fancy-built city and from above between all those tarred hulls coal-black, gray, green and white, a deep blue sky. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"What I lack are the skills of painting, the profession which I don't know, and now I see that the French [artists] possess this so extremely strong. I do believe that you can learn it all here. I am in Paris now. When someone is richer than me and he wants me to stay here for a year or half a year (for a few thousand francs) my future will have a lot of more certainty than when I must go back to Holland after eight days.. .I hope you will be able to fulfill my wish; I also put enough trust in you that you will do this, if you can. Waiting for your letter with a lot of anxiety, I remain' - G.H. Breitner (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"When, as he recently did [c. 1894-95] Breitner is painting a girl in a Japanese dress, then he is not interested in the costume, the masquerade-side of the representation, in the more or less pure ethnological authenticity, - but he is struck first and foremost by the beautiful contrast that such a white or vermilion-red rich embroidered dress creates against a dull black piece of furniture, a golden-yellow pillow or a lavishly colored oriental carpet. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"