Figuurstudies 1886 - 1923

Curator: Here we have George Hendrik Breitner's "Figuurstudies," figure studies, dating from 1886 to 1923. The medium is pencil on paper. It's currently held here at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Hmm, looks like a page torn from a notebook. Rough, unfinished...makes you wonder about the fleeting moments that caught Breitner's eye, doesn’t it? Curator: Precisely. Note how Breitner uses quick, gestural lines. The marks denote form, shadow, and spatial relationships in their most elemental condition. Observe also how areas are left deliberately unresolved, shifting our reading between absence and presence. Editor: Yeah, almost like glimpsing something real out of the corner of your eye... fleeting, uncertain. I get the sense that Breitner's focus was on movement, on capturing a sense of liveliness over static, formal depiction. Curator: Absolutely. Breitner was heavily interested in photography, we have here the transfer of photographic observation into a kind of freehand visual note. And the use of layering marks builds up to areas of much stronger definition within a field of relatively undifferentiated space. Editor: You know, it’s curious, that combination. He is a realist in that snapshot impression of the subject matter... but that hasty approach adds a layer of almost abstract emotional truth about observing life happening all around you. Curator: Agreed. It resists the academic formalism of the time while employing some of its principles of structure and representation in the most economic ways possible. Editor: Makes you ponder the raw potential of simplicity in art, doesn’t it? All you need are a few well-placed lines to unlock a whole world of emotions and experiences. Curator: Indeed. It gives us insight into Breitner's practice, stripping it back to basic mark-making that is the underpinning for so much more. Editor: For me, it reveals that art is as much about process and vision, as about technical skills. Breitner gives us permission to embrace the spontaneous, the unfinished.