“.. 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 as much as possible and reproduce them faithfully, which are so necessary to constitute a beautiful whole.”

— Gerard Bilders

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch / citaat van Gerard Bilders' brief, in het Nederlands: ..zóóveel is voor het minst zeker, dat het zien en bestuderen der groote Hollandsche meesters mij opwekt en aanspoort tot het kinderlijk volgen der natuur en zooveel mogelijk daarin die kleine naïveteiten en finesses op te merken en getrouw weer te geven, die zoo noodig zijn om een schoon geheel daar te stellen.
Quote of Gerard Bilders, in a letter to his mecenas Johannes Kneppelhout, The Hague 9 Jan. 1857; from an excerpt of this letter https://rkd.nl/nl/explore/excerpts/511, in the RKD-Archive, The Hague
1850's

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Gerard Bilders 14

painter from the Netherlands 1838–1865

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Gerard Bilders 14

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