Studie, mogelijk van een stadsgezicht met water c. 1886 - 1923

George Hendrik Breitner sketched this possible cityscape with water using a soft, almost smudgy charcoal. I can imagine him out there, maybe on a chilly day, quickly trying to capture the scene before the light changes or the moment passes. There's a lot of dark shading, but also these very light, almost tentative lines suggesting buildings and water. You know, it’s funny how a few simple marks can evoke so much. It makes me think about the essence of a place and how an artist decides what to leave in and what to leave out. It reminds me of some of Philip Guston's later works, where he used a similar kind of shorthand to depict figures and objects. Artists are always in conversation with each other, riffing off of each other’s ideas and techniques. This sketch feels like a fleeting thought, a moment captured, but it’s also part of a bigger conversation about how we see and represent the world around us.