Gezicht op de Heiligeweg te Amsterdam 1907

George Hendrik Breitner’s sketch of the Heiligeweg in Amsterdam is like a whisper, a fleeting thought jotted down in graphite on paper. Look at the hurried, almost nervous energy of those lines – they dart and weave, barely pausing to define a window or a building’s edge. I can imagine Breitner, standing on a street corner, sketchbook in hand, trying to capture the pulse of the city. You know, that feeling when you're trying to catch something that's just out of reach? The carriage wheels become a blur, the buildings loom in front of you. It's like he's wrestling with the chaos, the quickness of modern life. This drawing feels so contemporary. It's like a Cy Twombly scrawl capturing the here and now. It shows how artists from different eras are still in conversation. They're trying to make sense of the world through marks and gestures. And by doing so, they give us permission to see the world in new ways too.