Figuurstudies c. 1886 - 1923

George Hendrik Breitner made these figure studies with pencil, and the way the marks stutter across the page tells you everything. The speed, the confidence, and the slight awkwardness - it's all there in the lines. The sketchiness of the figures, that urgent desire to capture a fleeting moment, is what really grabs me. Look at how the figure on the left is caught mid-stride, almost falling off the page. Breitner's not interested in perfection, he’s trying to pin down an impression of movement. It's a real balancing act between observation and expression, a dance between eye and hand. This reminds me of Degas' drawings, where he was also trying to capture that sense of immediacy. In the end, it's not about what the figures are doing, but how the artist is seeing. And isn't that what art is all about? A kind of beautiful, unresolved ambiguity.