Gezicht op een gracht in Amsterdam met boten 1910

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of a canal in Amsterdam using graphite on paper. Look at the energy of those lines, rapid and fleeting. It’s like a visual shorthand, a way of capturing the essence of a scene without getting bogged down in detail. I can imagine Breitner standing there, sketchbook in hand, trying to capture the light, the movement of the boats, the atmosphere of the canal. What was he thinking as he worked? Probably, ‘How can I get this down quickly, before the light changes, before the moment is lost?’ The quick marks, they are the key. The texture of the paper is visible through the strokes. It is so thin! It reminds me of a Cy Twombly sketch, where the act of mark-making becomes as important as the subject itself. It's all about the gesture, that immediate expression of feeling and observation. It's like he's whispering to us, inviting us to fill in the blanks with our own imagination.