Bouwterrein met arbeiders c. 1898 - 1914

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of a construction site with labourers on paper using graphite and crayon. The hurried strokes of crayon are not about completion, they are about suggestion. About the sheer, daunting scale of the task undertaken by the workers here. See how the grey of the crayon and graphite is offset by the occasional burst of yellow or brown. These colours don’t sit within outlines, they leak out, expanding beyond their borders. I’m really drawn to the way the colour stain seems to act as a shadow for the lines. It gives the whole scene a feeling of instability, of something still in the process of becoming. The drawing reminds me of the sketches made by Käthe Kollwitz, with their raw, brutal honesty and focus on the lives of working people. But where Kollwitz is often dark and heavy, Breitner seems more playful, more optimistic, willing to see the beauty in the everyday chaos of the construction site. It’s like he’s saying, "Yeah, it’s messy, but it’s also kind of amazing, right?"