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 notic… - Johan Hendrik Weissenbruch

version in original Dutch: Weissenbruch tegen Vincent van Gogh: ..nu ik je werk gezien heb zal ik partij voor je trekken. Zij noemen mij ‘het zwaard zonder genade’, en dat ben ik ook, en ik zou zoo iets niet tegen Mauve over je gezegd hebben, als ik geen goeds gevonden had in je studies.

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)

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.