Willem Maris

"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)"

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

"I don't paint cows but light"

"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."

"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)"

"'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)"

"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.."

"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)"

"They [the sketches of young Willem Maris] were fast, broad, colorful, suggestive drawings, from which life and movement is speaking, in just a few lines of black chalk, which are softened here and there by a lick with the thumb. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"In that period the young painter had - what is rather peculiar - such specific preference for misty moods that he, disgruntled, repeatedly gave up his study trips for that day, when sun and wind had chased away the morning haze. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"..with the Antwerp painter Alex. Woest and Van Zeggelen he [Willem Maris] had been travelling to Norway [in 1871]. In the mountain landscapes [paintings] of Woest he painted cows and eagles.. .But now Woest, who painted anyway sometimes meritorious things, as Willem Maris told me, demanded that he should depict the eyes including pupils, etc.. of those animals [the cows], which were walking at a distance of three hours in his landscapes [paintings], clearly and accurate.."

"This is already the third time today that I meet you (Where? asked Willem Maris.). Today I walked with a friend on the migratory route and then I looked up at the sky and then I said: there you have Willem Maris. When we arrived in the city, I looked at the sky again and then I said: there you have Willem Maris again. And now I see you here for the third time. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)"

"..and sometimes pausing between our talks we looked at some few canvases that were waiting for the Master's hand with the open sketchbook in front of it.. ..for example a year or two a very large ducks- painting was waiting there that did not want to be finished', (Harms Tiepen quotes a witness who visited the studio of the older Willem Maris)"

"But William Maris selects this very time of day as for him specially desirable, and he sees mystery and poetry in the wonderful effect of the sun pouring its bright rays down on animals and pasture land. For this he is called the silvery Maris, and very remarkable are the effects he gets. It is true, as it is sometimes remarked, that he is always painting cattle and ducks. But it does not matter how many times he paints them, the pictures are always different, and no two are alike in subject and treatment."