Landschap met paarden en een soldaat c. 1889 - 1904

Curator: Breitner's "Landscape with Horses and a Soldier," dating from around 1889 to 1904, captures a slice of life during a time of considerable societal transformation in the Netherlands. Editor: It's intriguing; the drawing appears quickly rendered. The horse, rider, the barely-there landscape, rendered with such economy of line. It feels both immediate and detached, as if capturing a fleeting impression more than depicting solid forms. Curator: Precisely. Breitner was deeply engaged with depicting modern urban life, particularly the lives of the working class and military. These drawings served as studies, preparations for larger paintings documenting the social fabric of Amsterdam. We see his involvement in documenting these parts of the community that are otherwise not the primary subjects in artworks of that time. Editor: It certainly feels more documentary than heroic. The roughness of the drawing emphasizes a certain... unease? It mirrors something akin to photographic realism but lacks the mechanical coldness of the photograph and offers a directness and personal touch in its hasty rendering. What is striking here is how unfinished the human elements look and that those areas create the visual anchor. Curator: These horses are central figures in Breitner’s art, emblematic of the city life, not the romantic creatures of a rural idyll. They pulled carriages, transported goods, part of Amsterdam’s logistics and the infrastructure supporting its social framework. Editor: Look at how he almost entirely abstracts some figures with only light marks and almost playful curved lines on the top. This almost obscures that those marks are meant to illustrate people, which puts the emphasis of the form on its most abstract form. The tension here is palpable. Curator: Exactly! Breitner shows us not a heroic image, but a scene filled with movement and with purpose and the way it weaves itself in to a city filled with industry and production. Editor: A fascinating glimpse behind the scenes, indeed! The very incompleteness of this impression gives this "Landscape" its particular expressive weight.