Gezicht op het Rokin te Amsterdam, ter hoogte van het Beursstraatje Possibly 1907 - 1911

This sketch of the Rokin in Amsterdam, made by George Hendrik Breitner, seems to emerge right before our eyes with the barest minimum of marks. I can just imagine Breitner standing there, charcoal in hand, feeling the pulse of the city. He’s not trying to capture every little detail, but rather the essence, the feeling of being in that specific place. Look at the lines – so quick and decisive, almost like he’s chasing after the fleeting moment. There's a building, or maybe it's a bridge, looming there in the middle of the page in charcoal, built up line by line. It reminds me of some of Cy Twombly's sketches, where the gesture is everything and meaning is allowed to form slowly. It's like Breitner's saying: "Here’s what I saw, now you complete it." And that's the beauty of painting, isn't it? We're all in conversation, across time and space, bouncing ideas and images off each other, adding our own little brushstrokes to the ongoing story of art.