Gezicht 1886 - 1923

Curator: What strikes me immediately about this drawing is its sparseness. It's as if the artist, Breitner, only wanted to give us the bare minimum to understand what he was seeing. Editor: Breitner’s "Gezicht," dating somewhere between 1886 and 1923, offers a glimpse into his artistic process. It's rendered in pencil on paper and currently resides in the Rijksmuseum. But it does leave you wondering what’s *not* there. Curator: Exactly! It's a whisper of a face. You get the sense of a fleeting moment, a quick sketch captured on the go. It’s melancholic, almost ghostly. A shadow of a memory. Editor: Shadows indeed. The visible portions almost tease the observer. It could point to the objectification of the female form that stems from that male gaze of that era. There is the constant awareness, the knowledge, of being looked at which arguably still affects women. Curator: That's a compelling interpretation. I was simply thinking of the practical aspect; it feels like one of those preliminary sketches artists do, just mapping out the composition before committing to something more substantial. Perhaps he was trying to capture a specific expression or profile, only to abandon it later. Editor: Possibly. Or maybe its very unfinished state makes a statement, inviting viewers to question traditional portraiture. What does it mean to present an incomplete image? And furthermore, does it even truly represent anything that is remotely human? Curator: I find it incredibly intimate, as though we’re peeking into the artist's sketchbook. It's the art before it becomes "Art" with a capital A, raw and unfiltered. You feel a closeness to the sitter. Editor: Perhaps. Although to me, it serves as a chilling reminder that portraits, even in their most seemingly innocent forms, are never neutral. They're embedded with social, political, and gendered implications. Curator: So, while seemingly incomplete, Breitner has inadvertently started a whole conversation. Editor: Absolutely. Which speaks volumes. It certainly makes me wonder: if the portrait had been ‘finished’, would it still possess this power?