Sketchbook #2048 Holland [January 4-5, 1973] 8x6, pencil and watercolor sketches

[RB journal entry]
Jan 4
Oh it’s been mostly a lovely day, marvelous to drive out on a misty morning through the countryside with its rich life, its quality not particularly beautiful but paintable, so palpable so see-able. And then to get it under your skin.
The Kroller Müller is on a wild (for Holland) park of elm, rhododendrons, oaks + some cedar with soft sandy walks, benches, open clearings with just enough formality so you know man is watching. We strolled happily about in pleasure had a charming lunch of Dutch pancakes + coffee and gave ourselves particularly to Van Goghs. I make an effort of identification stronger than ever + was rewarded by VG’s sweetness, variety, vigor + talent for tone + drawing. I don’t want to do it that way [next part crossed out] because it’s flat even though his knowledge takes him into space. No qualifications. Question of one’s gifts. A very intelligent painter really who could not help being what he was. I understand his love for the “truthful” little Millets unquestionably weaker than his own but sincere.
(If I do another portrait I’ll have my sitter do something: pull coat up over shoulders - take something out of pocketbook.)
I’m moved by Corot. It’s the specific gravity of weight.

The Renoir (clown fiddler) early painting is in emulation of Manet, Velasquez, a youthful work full of temperament but not with full powers of the later Renoir. Still he could do almost anything so good his drawing - so instructive + elegant his color.
Even early on Van Gogh moves you. Those dark interiors, men at the loom or pen particularly gallant - all grisailles. [added later] the machinery, the activity clearly studiously observed.
Rembrandt inspired. That’s his scale. Then think of freshness of his impressions, color in cafe scene of the little tables, or the flower pieces.
Many delicious things in that splendid day. Tanagra figures, t’ang dynasty horses, a giovani di paulo, a Cranach landscape with deer an early wood carving of figure by Maillol.

Jan 5.
We’re cutting our Holland time short by 2 days so as to have time for the Belgian sights: Bruges, Gent, Antwerp, Brussels and possibly a day on a mountain in Luxemborg.
A day for recapitulation tomorrow in Rijksmuseum. I must study the Rembrandts again + some of the fine carving + perhaps oriental stuff as well. And pray for some lovely weather to go out + sketch. I tried it today, but hands in thick gloves don’t do much. I walked around the port in dense fog, the trees sparkling with soft rime looked like cherries in bloom, and sketched in the park in the afternoon, talked to a charming physics researcher at lunch, about Roger’s age and people with babies in the park playing with dogs + birds. Such fierce avid gulls, beautiful + clean, whirling about. And that odd transparent glaze of blue on the ice, on water, on the paths - a trick of the light very unusual. The beauty of the color is particularly luminous, never dry-seeming. Perhaps this accounted for the need of the Netherlanders to invent the art of oil-painting. The sun early in the day in the fog came through a thin off-white disc.
I watched workmen repairing pavements. Stones are simply laid in soft sand. The whole city is paved this way I imagine. Nothing, then, cracks or breaks, all is plastic + re-usable.
A letter from Jo Rider at American Express. Waiting for days. Very valiant, watchful, noting.
She would have been happier here in Amsterdam.