Architectuurstudies c. 1903

George Hendrik Breitner made this architectural study on paper sometime in the late 19th century. Looking at the sketch, I imagine Breitner outside, maybe even shivering slightly in the cold, rapidly drawing what he sees. It looks like he’s mapping out some buildings with a few quick strokes of graphite. He seems most interested in the walls, the linear scaffold of the architecture itself. The bare minimum is registered in the composition. I think that the best paintings always have this quality: that the artist is trying to figure something out. It isn’t fixed, but something is actually at stake in its making. It reminds me of the work of other painters who embraced the sketch-like as a means of creating, like Cy Twombly, or even the late work of Philip Guston. Artists are always in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity and approaches to mark making.