people-from-utrecht

"I believe that in our country Bilders' art is entirely self-contained and has not generated a particular school, despite the educational and moral strength which his art expressed. But man is inclined to compare, and that's why I believe Théodore Rousseau may be called Bilders' elder brother. Bilders' 'Wodans oaks' paintings.. ..[are] as beautiful as many by Rousseau. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"He 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)."

"Last week I was with Bilders.. .I saw a beautiful landscape of him, the village Vorden, illuminated by the evening twilight, with Cows in the Foreground. very poetical, and the true color of Father Bilders, as always.- (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Being self-taught and striving for a broad, fresh original concept of art himself he thought he could not warn Mesdag enough, to be on his guard and not to become a 'little Roelofs'; to point him to look above all with his very own eyes. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Even though many have seen Bilders studying nature with the greatest zeal and the noblest enthusiasm of studying nature, everyone will realize that an artist with such a poetic soul, processing his impressions, did not give what is called a faithful, elaborate imitation of nature.. .In our imagination we see Bilders, whom we saw so often at work, with a large pallet and broad brushes, standing at a certain distance from his canvas.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I doubt whether Bilders' great talent ever reached its full development. He stood alone, absolutely alone. The phlegmatic painters who were content slavishly to copy nature, the eminent painters of fields and cattle had little or nothing in common with him and the studies which were sold at the auction held in the studio of the late Mrs. Bilders-van Bosse, his second wife, prove that he felt a longing for more colour, that, directly or indirectly, he had experienced the influence of a Delacroix."

"Here in Oosterbeek, Bilders frequently worked behind the church, in the lower village, where then you could still find beautiful picturesque spots and old huts. He also worked a lot near the watermill of woman Gerritsen, well known to all painters of those days, and he was never able to forgive the rich Amsterdam guy who devastated that beautiful corner, to turn it into an ordinary villa. (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)"

"..and to my great pleasure I heard that the work 'The Wodan's Oaks' (at my brother's home), had also struck you so much. I think this is almost the most beautiful painting Bilders has made. I know that many of our artists have also been struck by it at Goupil's [art-seller in The Hague]. Among others Jacob Maris has spoken about it so warmly. And if one remembers that Bilders was [already] 75 when he made this! After the Wodan's oak - (?) to his Paradise.. [4 years later he died] (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Then - being in two minds - in my father's courtyard, I counted the buttons of my coat: soldier or painter, soldier, painter, soldier, painter.. ..the last button told me: painter. So it was decided by chance that I would become a painter [c. 1831]."

"People call this beautiful? - no, they are crazy, or I am mad! – How I learned now at Oosterbeek [c. 1834-36 that I should look at Nature completely different! In the beginning I could not make anything good; I soon realized that I had to start all over again."

"Today You will probably not regret Vorden [by not being able to paint?], for today it is all raining, and although the weather is gentle, I fear that we will soon meet the real days of Autumn. I hope that your paintings will be transported well [from Vorden], and [I hope] especially that you will keep that warm hue in them, which is so beautiful present now. That must be terribly difficult, when a painting has reach a certain level, not to spoil it then: I hope that You will not go on painting it too long, because then You will start stripping it off again: - better to put it away in time. - Farewell now, Mr. Bilders.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Yes, of course you want every shot to be a duck-bird [a dead bird?]"

"I worked hard the whole day, so that I am very tired now. Yesterday I made the sketch of the castle [in Vorden] on the canvas and today I painted the sky, the whole day long. I made the composition even more simple by leaving out the creel; the air is painted in the spirit of the [ Swartzwald [?], but much more stronger and sadder. I hope to show the people how beautiful, how profoundly poetical the castle [is].. ..please save this thumbnail-sketch [drawn in the letter, on the same paper] and also my previous letter. Who knows the descendants - when reading them, and looking at the sketch - will say: Look, it was in this way how Bilder's very lovely painting was discussed at the House 't Velde, and how it came into life in Vorden. Good-by, my dear Lady.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"..buried soberly, as simple as a child of the people, as I am."

"Recently my father visited me and he was very pleased with my little painting, the one you also found quite good. So this little work, which has cost me so many unpleasant hours, still has delivered me two pleasant moments after all. .. I imagine that I have now gained fresh courage again, because I have to confess that I lowered my courage a bit. I have decided not to overcome by despair so soon again. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"The last two days I have not painted on [his painting of] the Castle [in Vorden!] It is lying now on the roof to dry. it looks terribly gloomy.. .Good-bye, dear Miss. I still have to read in the great German philosopher Schopenhauer, a man who thought that all the misery he saw in life was created by an evil spirit who created this earth. - Good night, dear Miss, it is 2 o'clock in the night, already and the letter must still be mailed by post. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"This afternoon I had put myself down on this sweet spot, very tired of painting [with a view of the old castle of Vorden] .. .. I was completely immersed in thinking of You.. .I would rather like to.. ..thank you, dear and beloved Lady, for the right judgments and remarks which You gave me in this [your?] sweet letter. I solemnly promise you that I will use them for my benefit, and will spent all my powers as an artist, to make your attentions more worthy to me. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"In the back of the garden of the hostelry where I am staying there is a settee; when one is sitting there you get precisely a nice view on the abandoned castle of Vorden. Often I see the old reverend clergyman sitting there, certainly for having a real rural view on the meadow, or for being able to turn his eyes to the old grayed-up walls of the castle, and coming in that way to the thought how all human labor is brought back to Nothing by the breath of the ages. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"Nothing has happened since two or three days.. ..nothing special, only the Ladies van Loon have visited me this morning, I have shown them a few of my studies, and talked a lot about and {[w|nl:Vorden|Vorden}}. Now I could tell you further, how little I still feel at home, how a certain nostalgia or quiet sorrow plunges me down, and how an indefinite hurry for an even more uncertain future dominates my whole [being?]; but why should I bother You by telling You my inner life.. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"I agreed with my father's servant, to travel secretly to Greece [c. 1825-26], to help them in their War for freedom against the Turks]; everything was ready for the journey, but then my father discovered our intentions. On that occasion I got my first and only beating."

"You, who of the [[w:Dutch Golden Age painting|Dutch [painting] School]] keeps confirming its old fame.. .Your tree shadows, your distance, your inimitable airs, - It all remind us of Ruysdael's spirit and Berchem's art (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)."

"On a certain day I packed my things and went to Oosterbeek [c. 1834-36]. I saw a man lying out of the window somewhere. Farmer! are there rooms for rent nearby? - Yes sir, even here. - I went in, saw a beautiful, suitable painting room; that satisfied me, I ask for nothing more. One hundred fifty guilders was the rent [per year]. I offered a hundred sixty when he also worked the garden and planted a lot of red cabbage, because I like to see that."

"Just start, your palette will help you. (if you worried about a painting or dread to start painting"

".I don't love less the gray waters of my Holland, their serious and somewhat sad color, which corresponds so well with the similar gray skies and vapors that are hanging there. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"What I dislike in him is that 'while painting' he complains about terrible boredom and idleness.. .In short, I find him a sympathetic figure, but I would rather read the life of père Millet or T. Rousseau or Daubigny [all artists of the School of Barbizon ].. ..G. Bilders was a romantic in his outlook on life, and he never got over his lost illusions. For my part I regard it as in a sense a privilege that I began when romantic illusions were a thing of the past. Now I have some way to catch up, work hard, but particularly when you have lost illusions behind you, work is something you need and one of the few pleasures left. And from this comes a great peace and calm.. ..too often with G. Bilders it's [in his diary and letters] 'I was in a bad mood this week and made a mess of things..'."

"I always have the most sympathy for that painting of mine, which the other people appreciate the least. It gives me the impression of an outcast and it takes on a romantic-interesting quality. I therefore always put this work first and want to prove to everyone that he is wrong if he does not appreciate this above all my other works. It is certainly rather foolish, and I do not know, it comes from an 'esprit de contradiction' or just from pity. The bad end has something attractive, one has sympathy for it."

"I am searching for a tone, which we call 'colored grey'. I mean that all colors, even the strongest, can be brought together in such a way as to give the impression of a warm, vital grey. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I have seen pictures [on the Salon of Brussel, 1860], of which I had never dreamed and in which I found all that my heart desires, all that I nearly always miss in the Dutch painters. Troyon, Courbet, Diaz, Dupré [all painters of the School of Barbizon, Robert Fleury have made a great impression on me. I am a good Frenchman, therefore; but, as Simon van den Berg says, it is just because I am a good Frenchman that I am a good Dutchman, since the great Frenchmen of today and the great Dutchmen of the past have much in common. Unity, restfulness, earnestness and, above all, an inexplicable intimacy with nature are what struck me most in these pictures. There were certainly also a few good Dutch pieces, but, generally speaking, when you place them next to the great Parisians, they lack that mellowness, that quality which, so to speak, resembles the deep tones of an organ. And yet this luxurious manner came originally from Holland, from our steaming, fat-coloured Holland! They were courageous pictures; there was a heart and a soul in them."

"For me Ruisdael is the true man of poetry, the real poet. There is a world of sad, serious and beautiful thoughts in his paintings. They possess a soul and a voice that sounds deep, sad and dignified. They tell melancholic stories, speak of gloomy things and are witnesses of a sad spirit. I see him wander, turned in on himself, his heart opened to the beauties of nature, in accordance with his mood, on the banks of that dark gray stream that rustles and splashes along the reeds. And those skies!.. .In the skies one is completely free, untied, all of himself.. ..what a genius he is! He is my ideal and almost something perfect. When it storms and rains, and heavy, black clouds fly back and forth, the trees whiz and now and then a strange light breaks through the air, and falls down here and there on the landscape, and there is a heavy voice, a grand mood in nature; that is what he paints; that is what he [Ruysdael] is imaging."

"All I can tell is that they [some small landscapes Bilders painted in Savoy, which were exhibited there] are more blatant than in my studio, and secondly that I have been honored with a pretty good review. ..the jury found evidence of a thoroughly study and of happy sunlight in my works. They thought that I had to cherish a lot of love for nature, to be able to show it so sensitive .. ..[I] can not deny that I am very pleased to find that my small paintings have been noticed favorably. And besides that, one will never forget his first review.."

"Friday 11. I have found there [at the [[w:Mauritshuis|museum 'Mauritshuis'] ]] already refuge - in front of Potter's big Bull. That is I started to copy the sheep with the lamb, which will not be a easy task, notwithstanding its great simplicity. The longer I look at that painting, the more beautiful things become visible to me, and when I wasn't convinced for sure that I was sitting in front of my painting easel in The Hague at the Mauritshuis, I would believe that the animals were alive and were - just as in the meadows in Oosterbeek - staring at me with their stupid faces, and asking: - what are you doing there? (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Now one thing is annoying and no one can change this. It is that the days are so horribly short because of the dark weather. Sketching and [?] is still possible to do, but to look closely and to reproduce subtle hues and shades would now be completely impossible. Especially in the Museum it is sometimes really dark. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Yesterday I received a letter from my father [ Dutch landscape-painter J. W. Bilders.] He told me to come at once, to paint the goats in a rather large forest landscape-painting he just finished, which has to be sent away at once [to Saint Petersburg, Russia]. I earn back my travelling [from Leiden to Amsterdam, probably by travel coach] but will loose one day studying in open air. When my goats will succeed, and they are not too stubborn, I'll be back here [in Leiden] tomorrow at one o'clock in the afternoon."

"If you ever want to see the 'Nightwatch' [by Rembrandt ] at its best, visit it at two o'clock, half past three afternoon.. ..that time a warm light falls on the painting [then located in the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam]; another world opens, a world of glow, light and inimitable power. I think Rembrandt is not only beautiful, but – were we still in the Age of the old Gods, I would worship him. You can lose yourself in that painting; it is a complete abyss, deep and sky-high.. ..then suddenly I think of my own paintings - poor cow, dairy, and sheep compositions, and I doubt, will I ever become something.."

"..so much is certain at least that seeing and studying the great Dutch masters arouse and encourage me to follow nature as a child, and to notice in it all those little ingenuous things and niceties as much as possible and reproduce them faithfully, which are so necessary to constitute a beautiful whole. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"I agree completely with your remark that in the struggle against nature lies already a part of art, and really pleasant is for me already the feeling of returning as a victor from small skirmishes, although in the great battle one always feels still defeated. As you advised me, I have made sketches of skies, indicating the effect in them, and making a note for the important colors; I also did better in making a small sky; at least people think so. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"The moon appeared for some time [in the Savoy, Switzerland] and the rocks seemed to be much bigger than they were. The mountains were silvery illuminated and appeared gently against the mysterious blue of the sky - that blue color with moonlight, that has such an indefinable, deep tone; actually it is not a blue."

"The past few days I've been reading part of a rather melancholy book, 'Brieven en dagboek' ('Letters and Diary') of Gerard Bilders. He died at the age [27] when I was more or less beginning. When I read it, I don't regret making a late start. He was certainly unhappy and was often misunderstood, but at the same time I find a great weakness in him, something unhealthy in his character. It's like the story of a plant that shoots up too early and can't withstand the frost, and as a result one fine night it's struck to the root and withers away. At first he does well — he's a master as in the hothouse — making rapid growth there — but in Amsterdam he stands almost alone, and despite his brilliance he can't cope there, and in the end he comes back to his father's house, completely discouraged, dissatisfied, apathetic — and there he does some more painting and finally dies of consumption or another disease in his 28th year."

"To preserve the sense of the 'grey' even in the most powerful green is amazingly difficult and whoever discovers it will be a happy mortal. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"It is not my aim and object to paint a cow for the cow's sake or a tree for the tree's, but by means of the whole to create a beautiful and huge impression which nature sometimes creates, also with most simple means. (translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Many paintings are on their way, several half finished, others almost varnished and signed at the bottom. An important point is how a painting succeeds at last; an equally important point is when, how and to whom it is sold. Of these three points, the 'when', at least at this moment, is the most important for me. Then the 'how', in the sense of 'how much' [money]. To 'whom', is a question of wealth or wanton, as someone who had nothing to eat for a long time and then start to think, at whose costs am I going to fill my stomach.. .How mean! Painters are inferior people. Harsh!"

"[I want to be] a king who in the 21st century can unite, represent and encourage society."

"I’m not a protocol fetishist. People can address me however they want. For me, it is about people feeling at ease when I’m with them."

"People make mistakes. I will make mistakes in the future, too... I think we have learnt a lot from this and that it has also been part of the training in our preparation for kinghood."

"Bathed in late afternoon sun, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, boarded a steamboat on Lake Geneva. He was there for drinks and nibbles with the King of Holland and the head of NATO, a glamorous end to a busy day at the Bilderberg summit. Representing the White House, Jared Kushner wore a beatific smile."

"The gravitational force is the oldest force known to man and the least understood."

"Je bent geen ondernemer geworden om fulltime formulieren in te vullen."

"Ik ben niet links, ik ben niet rechts. Ik ben recht-door-zee."

"The plastic expression of space is inconceivable without light. Light and space complete one another. In architecture light represents an element of plastic expression – in fact, the most important one. An organic relationship between 'space' and 'material' is possible only with the aid of light. The highest achievements in architecture can be accomplished only if light also is treated as plastic form."