Gerard Bilders

"If you ever want to see the 'Nightwatch' at its best, visit it at two o'clock, half past three afternoon.. ..that time a warm light falls on the painting ; another world opens, a world of glow, light …"

".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."

"Friday 11. I have found there 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. Th…"

"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…"

"..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 a…"

"Yesterday I received a letter from my father 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 . I earn bac…"

"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…"

"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 there…"