Annotaties c. 1893s - 1903s

George Hendrik Breitner made this page of annotations, probably in a sketchbook, as a way of noting down something he was thinking or seeing. It's a field of almost translucent marks, written with the artist's hand, like whispers across the page. I can imagine Breitner with the sketchbook in his lap, maybe in a cafe or on a train, quickly jotting down his thoughts. What’s amazing here is how the rhythm of the writing—the loops and swirls—becomes a kind of drawing in itself. The text is illegible, but the script becomes a landscape of thought. The arrangement reminds me a bit of Cy Twombly’s scrawls, where the act of writing becomes more about gesture and feeling than literal communication. It also reminds me of other artists who use sketchbooks as a space for experimentation and free association. For Breitner, this was a space to capture fleeting moments and ideas, a sort of parallel practice to his paintings, which are mostly cityscapes. These kinds of intimate, personal notations show how artists engage in ongoing dialogues with themselves and the world, constantly gathering inspiration and refining their vision through many different forms of expression.