Studieblad met hoofden 1914 - 1923

This study sheet with heads was made by George Hendrik Breitner, presumably with pencil and maybe some light washes, we don’t know exactly when. What strikes me is the incompleteness of it all. It’s like catching a glimpse into the artist's mind at a moment of fleeting inspiration. The material itself, that thin paper, looks so fragile, almost like it could crumble to dust if you touched it, and the faintness of the marks only adds to that feeling. Look at the bottom right corner, where a few heads are barely outlined. The lines are so tentative, so unsure, it's as if Breitner was feeling his way around the subject, trying to capture something elusive. It reminds me a bit of some of Manet’s sketches, that same sense of immediacy. It’s a reminder that art is as much about the process as it is about the final product.