George Hendrik Breitner

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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."

"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)"

"..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)"

"After viewing a few paintings and a drawing that I had brought in the day before yesterday, Mr. v.d. Kellen [Dutch art-dealer] assured me that there was absolutely no chance of placing anything of mine here, unless it was bought under pressure of a pleasant future, and I think he is right because he showed me various paintings, and specifically those that were closest to my understanding of art were the most difficult to place.. .I was astounded and furious about such far-reaching stupidity and the pedantry of the man [another art dealer, Herman Deichmann]. All the paintings present were beneath criticism, they were just the usual German Academic-stuff. (The Hague, 1882)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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.."

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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"

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

"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)"

"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)"

"..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"

"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)"

"Snow had fallen and from the museum [in Pittsburgh, The ] you had a beautiful view of a valley with a railway, through some sheds, etc. But I could not finish it, and today, Sunday, I went back there again, but then the snow was already so far away that I could not make anything of it any more. It is a pity. Otherwise I could have sold something. [The painting was sold to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1934] (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"..but also for the person who is visiting Paris later in his life for the very first time, something unusual will happen.. ..then there appears for the man of age a light - a light in which he sees the dreamy images of his life transforming into more tangible and more solid forms. Because that city has created our modern culture, and the movements of life in most countries are just a reflex of those which are starting in France's capital. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Dam Square is the center of movement in our city [Amsterdam]. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"It is not possible to make such things [paintings of street-views] without the help of photos. How do you want me to make an Amsterdam street. I make thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook. if it's possible I make a study from a window. and a sketch for the details after my choice. The composition is mine anyhow. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"The so-called bourgeoisie doesn't provide any substance for my art. The character [of the models] there is too faint and without any spirit. It doesn't represent a race in an artistic sense. So there is no other choice for me [than folk women]. (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"At the moment I quite often go drawing together with Breitner, a young painter who's acquainted with Rochussen as I am with Mauve. He draws very skillfully and very differently from me, and we often draw types together in the soup kitchen or the waiting room &c. He sometimes comes to my studio to look at woodcuts, and I go to see his ones as well. letter 204, from the original letter; location and translation: Van Gogh museum, Amsterdam"

"He [Breitner] is working on a large painting, a market where a lot of figures have to be painted. Yesterday evening I went out with him to look for types of figures on the street [in The Hague], for studying them afterwards in the studio with a model. In this way I have drawn an old woman.. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Breitner, whom I didn't expect in the least because he had apparently broken off contact completely some time ago, turned up yesterday. That pleased me because in the past — when I was first here [in The Hague] — he was very pleasant to go walking with. I mean to go out together not in the country but in the city itself, to look for figures and nice scenes. Here in The Hague there isn't a single person I've ever done that with in the city itself; most think the city ugly and pass by all of it. And yet it's really beautiful in the city sometimes, don't you agree?** Quote of Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Theo, from the Hague, c. July 1883 - original manuscript at Van Gogh Museum, location Amsterdam - inv. nos. b322 a-c V/1962"

"If he is good, it seems to be something hasty of Vierge [ Daniel Vierge? ], if he however is rushing or not working continuously, which is most often the case, then it is difficult to say who it seems the most, because it seems to nothing - unless to strips of an old faded wallpaper from I don't know which time, but in any case very weird and probably long past eras.. ..fields of faded color as on bleached and decayed and moldy wallpaper.. ..it is something one sees with fever."

"I've spoken to Breitner again, about those three compositions in progress [three studies by Breitner: 'Charge of the hussars', a 'Drunkard' and a 'Flower market' - Vincent wrote about in his last letter to Theo], It was indeed so that he had done them in a moment when he was out of sorts [Breitner was ill]. He told me that he regretted doing them like that, and showed me an altered composition of the drunkard and studies of low street women that were infinitely better. And I also saw some watercolors in the making and a painting of a farrier's that were done with a calmer and more correct hand and head. I read a book he lent me, 'Soeur Philomène' by [brothers] De Goncourt, who wrote Gavarni. The story is set in a hospital, very good. ([English translation, VanGoghletters online)"

"I hope that in the meantime you will say farewell to the untidy impressionistic manner, based on nothing and.. ..pursue that which is within your reach to develop the talent you have, with seriousness and hard work. (The Hague, 1883)"

"I received the farrier [painting] in good order. I think the work has improved since I saw it recently in Rotterdam [in Breitner's studio]. You were then hesitating to paint on it again, but now the broad conception has won, and the light has also improved a lot; although I think that you have progressed strongly last year, you need more workmanship in order to call a painting finished in the eyes of us, laymen. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"

"Mr. Breitner's ridiculous landscape blotching. I am not sure if Mr. Breitner's piece is not a city or village picture, or indeed not a group of people. A mass of blue at the top does make me feel that it is outside in the open air. Have the gentlemen perhaps been sent by some Academy or other to make Impressionism ridiculous? (1884)"

"See the wonderful harmony of emotional colors, that warm white, that greasy metal gray; with notes of dark blue and somber yellow; that reflected-dark, glowing environment with here and there a mat sweep of light.. ..at the exhibitions where it was exposed, it was misunderstood – it was placed in a corner or was hung too high. (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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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)"

"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."

"How could he grumble about the disappearance of the tram-horses [in Amsterdam city], which were replaced by 'those ugly, soulless boxes', as he called the first electric trams."

"He had nervous manners and his shyness made him seem unfriendly. A normal conversation was impossible: he spoke in short stiff sentences that were regularly interrupted by an abrupt laughter. Unexpected sounds or light could startle him. He preferred to play chess with Willen Witsen rather than having a conversation."

"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."

"Most treatments [of several paintings of Breitner] included the removal of a highly yellowed varnish. The varnish removals showed that many representations are cool and clear in color, in contrast to the traditional image of Breitner, being a painter with a predominantly brownish and gloomy palette. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)"