Gevel met een raam 1898

George Hendrik Breitner sketched "Facade with a Window", a drawing now held at the Rijksmuseum. Breitner lived through a time of immense social change in the Netherlands, with growing industrialization and urbanization that deeply impacted the urban poor. Breitner sought to capture fleeting moments of everyday life, particularly those of the working class. His unflinching portrayals of the working class challenged the romanticized views of peasant life common in the art world at the time. Breitner said that he saw himself as "the painter of the people". In this drawing, the window could symbolize a literal opening to another world. He was interested in showing the harsh realities that were often ignored by the bourgeois. The drawing is marked by an emotional connection to the urban environment and its inhabitants, prompting us to reflect on the lives and labor of the individuals who often remain unseen. It is a mirror reflecting both the specific realities of 19th-century Amsterdam and enduring questions about who and what we choose to see.