"Once I heard him [Breitner] saying: 'I do not understand that you paint the sea with your talent - I think the sea is ugly'. When I showed him a big moon-sea [painting of Mendlik] at another time, he exclaimed 'What a beautiful sky you have painted, but underneath that you should not have painted the sea but a farm with a yellow-lit window and dark trees'. I laughingly answered: 'Yes, and a gray horse' [which Breitner often painted in his Amsterdam city-paintings] and Breitner had to laugh with me."