“Th. De Bock has explained how little realistic James [= Jacob] Maris was in his paintings, which have such an appearance of frank truth that one would hesitate without this proof to think they were other than records of the places he painted. He used to make numerous sketches of the bridge and canal near his house, but when he came to paint he combined all these into a [one!] picture which, though not this bridge, yet got the indefinable something, the essence of the scene before him, though it was far from being like a photographic statement of it.”