Willem Maris quotes

The cow exists for the light that comes to glide along and over the animal - the light doesn't exist for he cow. (Willem Maris)

Weiss' always said it so well: 'When you go outside, it's like getting a punch against your chest.. hey.. damned, that's beautiful!!' And that's why we made so many beautiful things in our studio in the Juffrouw Idastraat in The Hague city. The studio was not very special. It was noisy. But going outside suddenly, that moved you so strongly..

Willem Maris

As far as I can remember, it was about 25 or 26 years ago that Breitner [his pupil then] painted with me in 'Huize Rozenburg' [The Hague]... There I had a large garden where he painted his dragoons with horses, posing there in front of him..

Willem Maris

a couple of days afterwards I was sitting somewhere and painting - when one of these braggarts came up behind me. Well, hey, when you're young, you don't think that's very nice. And suddenly the guy throws his arms around me and roars: 'I sit here all day long plodding away with a pencil - scratching and scratching - and you get it right away!

Willem Maris

I don't paint cows but light.

Willem Maris

At Heyser [a pub in The Hague] came the venerable old guys [painters]: Smit-Cranz, Coelman a. o. Those were the bigwigs, you see. We were the revolutionaries. And an opposition that we got! - In 't Kurhaus they hang a poster against us during our first exhibition; they named us 'mud painters'. (translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)

Willem Maris

As far as I can remember, it was before my twelfth year that I was sketching cows in the mornings before and afternoons after school, and because my brothers were 4 and 6 years older than me – naturally I got from them my first teachings in drawing and later in painting.

Willem Maris