Gezicht op een straat c. 1912

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing, "Gezicht op een straat," with pencil to quickly capture a street view, and you can almost feel him working, right? The whole thing feels like an exercise in seeing, where the hand and eye move together. The forms are really just suggested. Look at the dark smudges of the figures on the left, just vertical marks, they're so loose, just a hint of the human form. Then, at the bottom, it seems like there are objects, maybe discarded props or equipment. It's fascinating to see how much information Breitner conveys with so little detail. It reminds me a bit of some of Manet's more dashed off paintings, that same sense of modernity and fleeting impressions, and it shows how artists are always in conversation with one another, even across time. I always think of art as a way of exploring the world, and this drawing is a perfect example of that.