Vrouwen op het Rokin te Amsterdam c. 1903

This sketch of Women on the Rokin in Amsterdam was made by George Hendrik Breitner with pencil on paper. It’s all about the process, isn't it? I mean, look at these lines! They're so immediate, so searching. You can almost feel Breitner's hand moving across the page, trying to capture the essence of a bustling city scene. The marks are light, airy, but they build up to create a sense of depth and movement. I am drawn to the way he suggests forms rather than defines them, letting the blank space of the paper do some of the work. Take the figures, for example. They're just a few quick strokes, but they convey so much about their posture and their relationship to each other. And the buildings in the background are even more abstracted, reduced to a series of lines and planes that suggest their architectural structure. It reminds me a bit of some of Cy Twombly’s sketchbook works, where the act of drawing becomes a kind of meditation on form and space. It’s like Breitner is saying, "Here's a glimpse of something, but it's up to you to fill in the details."