Barend Cornelis Koekkoek

Quotes

• “[Nature] only give it you, when you carefully consider its majesty and greatness. Does it not present beautiful scenes in front of your eyes that impossibly could be described to you by somebody else?.. ..[scenes], which you can try to realize afterwards in your room on the canvas or panel. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”
• “* For a landscape painter.. ..simple natural scenes can also be delightful, as romantics does. Perhaps even more instructive, because the eye can find a more elementary harmony in it.. ..that's how the solemn [[w:Emmerich am Rhein|[river] Rhine for Emmerik]] was there to me; how very simple the scene nevertheless was, I found it very beautiful.. .Truly beautiful.”
• “Fortunately however, is that [painting] school where Mother Nature is placed in the foreground, and where only she is consulted to representate 'truth' on the canvas or panel. Only he knows the secrets of the manifold diversity of nature. His painting is a faithful copy of nature - which is the highest praise for a painter..”
• “Shall I now ask these palette-slaves what poetry means, and in how many forms it appears to us? They want to chain her [poetry], just as they are tied up themselves to their master's palette, [or] to some part of the sacred history.. ..to a folktale.. .. a miraculous landscape .. .. or other pompous imaginations.”
• “In my opinion the aim of the painter is similar with that of the poet, insofar that both want to affect the feelings of the viewer or reader. As soon as their scenes.. ..are lacking the mark of nature, of truth, than both will fail to realize it. The Dutch painter feels - as well as the Germans do - the influence of sublime nature, but the Dutch painter first wants to be acquainted with 'plain truth', to combine it afterwards with the poetic..”
• “I really believe that the general, happy mood of the people here [in Elberfeld, Germany] is largely caused by nature. At least I am experiencing that in places like these people are much more natural than in regions where nature offers them little or nothing to subtract their heart for some time from the hypocrisy of the world, and to taste a not-deceitful delight.”

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Wikidata facts

Image

Zelfportret met baret, RP-T-1907-15.jpg

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