Jozef Israëls Quotes (1824-1911)

“Here's a list of Dutch paintings intended for the [Paris] Salon: - Israëls, an old man: ..an old man sits in a hut by the fireplace in which a small piece of peat barely glows in the twilight. For it's a dark hut the old man sits in, an old hut with a small window with a little white curtain. His dog, who's grown old with him, sits beside him – those two old creatures look at each other, they look each other in the eye, the dog and the old man. And meanwhile the man takes his tobacco box out of his trousers pocket and he fills his pipe like that in the twilight. Nothing else – the twilight, the quiet, the loneliness of those two old creatures, man and dog, the familiarity of those two, that old man thinking.. ..that face – a melancholy, satisfied, submissive expression.. .I definitely know of no other painting than this Israëls that can stand up to Millet's Death and the woodcutter, that one can see at the same time, on the other hand I know of no other painting that could stand up to this Israëls than Millet's Death and the woodcutter, no other painting that one can see at the same time as this Israëls. Moreover, I feel in my mind an irresistible desire to bring together that painting by Israëls and that other by Millet and make them complement each other.. .Its a fabulous Israëls,.”

“It seemed to you [his brother Theo van Gogh ] perhaps as if the sun shone brighter and everything had acquired a new charm. At any rate, I believe this is always the effect of a serious love [with Sien,] and that's a delightful thing.. .I can find no words for how beautiful the old courtyards are here [in The Hague]. And although Jozef Israëls does it perfectly, so to speak, I find it strange that so relatively few pay them any attention. Here in The Hague every day, so to speak, I see a world which a great many pass by and which is very different from what most [painters of the Hague School are making.. .'Oh, but those filthy folk' or 'that sort of people' - in short, expressions one wouldn't expect from a painter.”

“What a pleasure is it to see such a 'Frans Hals' [because the painter Frans Hals was also painting in a loose brush-technique] - it is completely different from the paintings - there are so many of them - where everything has been smoothed out in the same painstaking way.. ..[Jozef] Israëls has a much healthier and more solid technique, like in that very old canvas [1856!] 'De visser van Zandvoort' with beautiful clair-obscure, then the technique of those who are at every spot equally smooth, flat and distinguished, because of their view, cold- colored..”

“[Jozef] Israels first became himself [as an artist] at an age when most painters have already delivered their best work, and if he had been so unlucky to dy at the age of forty, Holland would have counted one of his best sons less.”

“.. [Jozef] Israels paints the floors of his interiors, and produces a perfectly level appearance in them as they gradually retreat from the spectator.. .The effect is gained by a masterly combination of linear and aerial or colour perspective, and by getting the values absolutely true, all of which gives the appearance of depth to the flat surface the painter has to work on. It helps largely to give a feeling of atmosphere to the scene, and we are able to follow the strong light in the foreground as it plays round figures and furniture through finely graduated passages of colour, until it is lost in the dim distance.”

“Israels, and his friend and follower (yet powerful artist on his own account) Blommers, have painted them under every possible condition: cottage Madonnas, [cottage] breakfasts, [cottage] dinners, feeding baby, and all the ages of motherhood and childhood are there. For years Israels had in his studio the interior of a peasant's cottage erected as a model, and his Reveries, Weary Watchers, and kindred subjects have come therefrom.”