Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch quotes

I am here the doctor [in his studio], bringing his morning visit. I feel them all [his watercolors] the pulse. One I say: Wait, I'll make you an ointment, so you will refresh completely. The other I say: Friend, you need air, and even more the light. (Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch)
Light and air, that's art! I can never give enough light in my paintings, especially in the skies. The air in a painting, that is really a thing! It is the main thing! Air and light are the great magicians. It is the sky which prescribes the painting. Painters never look enough at the sky. We must get it from above. (translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018) View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
Weissenbruch to Vincent van Gogh:.. now that I have seen your work, I will take sides for you. They call me 'the sword without mercy', and I am - and I would not have said anything like that to Anton Mauve about you if I had not found any good in your sketches. View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
You see I am like a surgeon in a hospital; all these [sketches / watercolors] lying around me are my patients, and as I walk about among them I notice those most in need of doctoring. I pick out some sickly looking specimen and say to myself, 'Only wait a moment, and I will find some remedy for you'; some need much medicine, and some even require a severe operation to bring them round. Look at that one in the corner. I believe it is suffering from jaundice, but doubtless I shall find a cure for it. View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
I was a healthy, strong, cheerful boy, and like to take great walks in and around The Hague... I sometimes got a blow from Nature. And if I got such a blow later, I could draw and paint what I saw. I recorded it in a few scribbles. View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
Weissenbruch to Anton Mauve: He [ Vincent van Gogh ] is drawing damn well, I could paint after his studies. View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
Better send in one good picture than a lot of poor ones, but then that good one must be so good that it almost walks out of the frame and becomes a portion of nature itself. View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
When it is storming and raining, thundering and lightening I am in my element; nature must be seen in action. Then outside, I put on my jacket, put my feet in clogs, put on a hat and start on a march. When the showers settle down, with charcoal or black chalk [I] make a scribble, to keep a firm grip on what one sees. When working out, hue and color come smoothly back into the memory. View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
I remember I stood stunned as a boy, in front of the paintings of the old [Dutch] masters in our museums, how they let speak Nature to you. If I have learned to see nature by someone, it was by our old masters. But most by Nature itself. View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch
My good Lord and friend Sala, - [I] enjoyed the blissful pleasure enjoyed by your friendship... When I reached the city [The Hague] again yesterday, I have taken the fishes out of the basket more than 12 times, to show them... That day, friend Sala, belongs among the most pleasant of my life, all moments have kept me alive until now, always sitting [fishing] in the boat, swaying with the bobbers in the field of view.. View quote
Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch