More in the thorns

Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, from The Hague, c. 5 March 1883

There is no picture of De Bock's that I don't look at with a certain pleasure - there is always something fresh and genial about it. But there is a certain kind of art - perhaps less flowery, more thorny - of which I find more in my own heart.

I know, Ruysdael himself has had his metamorphoses, and perhaps his most beautiful works are not the waterfalls and the grand forest views but L'estacade aux eaux rousses and Le Buisson in the Louvre, The Mill at Wijk bij Duurstede in the Van der Hoop Collection, the Bleacheries at Overveen in the Mauritshuis and other more commonplace things which he turned to in later years, probably under the influence of Rembrandt and Vermeer of Delft. I wish something similar would happen to De Bock, but will this be the case? I should be sorry for him if he did not land more in the thorns than in the flowerets - that's all.

Letter R30
Translation courtesy of Robert Harrison.
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