Vrouwelijk naakt c. 1906 - 1923

This sketch by George Hendrik Breitner, in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is made with graphite on paper, and it's so fast it's almost like he's chasing a fleeting thought. I can almost feel the artist's hand moving rapidly across the page, trying to capture the essence of the figure with just a few lines. You know, sometimes drawing feels like that, like you're wrestling with an idea, trying to pin it down before it vanishes. I wonder if Breitner felt that too? I bet he did. The way he uses the graphite, it's not about perfection, it's about feeling. There's a vulnerability in those marks, a raw honesty that reminds us that art is as much about the process as it is about the final product. You can see this quality in other work by painters like Degas, and Paula Modersohn-Becker, who drew with similar urgency. What do you feel when you look at it?