Staande vrouw met kind 1881 - 1883

Curator: I see a haunting tenderness in these lines. Editor: Breitner’s “Standing Woman with Child,” drawn between 1881 and 1883, does offer us such rawness. Made with pencil on paper, this drawing currently resides in the Rijksmuseum collection. Curator: It feels more like a whisper of a moment than a definitive statement. I’m drawn to how ephemeral it is. A mother… maybe lost in thought, tethered to her child, or the other way around. Who holds whom? Editor: Ephemeral is spot on. What grabs me immediately is the labor embedded in this seemingly simple sketch. Consider the paper itself, the pencil—resources extracted, processed, distributed. And Breitner’s labor of observing, translating, and committing the scene to paper. This wasn’t just art-making; it was also work, deeply entangled with the social fabric of its time. Curator: Absolutely. It's realism distilled. You sense the hurried breath of its creation. There's a world worn on the paper, beyond just lines, which the realism just showcases in its own style. It becomes not only about what is, but what _was_ happening to those bodies during its making, and afterwards as well. Editor: Breitner was deeply engaged with documenting urban life, and these subjects were far removed from the gilded world of academic painting. So much of academic practice obscures process through perfect blending and smooth surface treatments—here the material reality shouts. What papers was readily available? Were his pencils locally produced? Breitner is not just representing but consuming materials like all of us do. Curator: It does highlight a different social realism in that sense! It brings it all home. Editor: This work has changed my perception again. I appreciate his honest use of materials here in this work all the more, and seeing how he captured the world, his world, with it. Curator: Mine too. I had never really given enough thought about where it came from before it appeared as art. So thanks for the extra dimension to consider!