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… - George Hendrik Breitner
" "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)
About George Hendrik Breitner
George Hendrik Breitner (12 September 1857 – 5 June 1923) was a Dutch painter and photographer. An important figure in Amsterdam Impressionism, he is noted especially for his paintings of street scenes and harbours around 1890 – 1920. He painted frequently en plain air, and became interested in photography as a means of documenting street life and atmospheric effects; he loved the Dutch rainy and snowy weather.
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Additional quotes by George Hendrik Breitner
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)
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)
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)