Gebouwen Possibly 1907 - 1911

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing, "Gebouwen," with what looks like charcoal on paper, and the buildings emerge from a flurry of marks. I think of him, charcoal in hand, quickly making decisions about where to put each line. It's like he’s trying to capture the essence of the building. I feel the artist wrestling with the form, rubbing it out, and then adding more marks, trying to make it cohere. Those dark, smudged lines aren't just describing a building, they’re also about feeling, like the weight of the city. You can see this kind of searching in other drawings too, where artists are thinking through form and space. The work has a provisional, open-ended quality. The artist shares their thinking, as if inviting us to engage with the creative process. Maybe this is the real subject of the work. We can experience this place anew each time we look.