Studie en annotaties c. 1903

This page of sketches and annotations was made by George Hendrik Breitner, and it's like a peek into the artist's mind at work. The scribbled lines and notes, they show a process, a way of thinking through seeing. I am drawn to the materiality of the page, the texture of the paper, and the immediacy of the marks. It’s like a conversation happening right there. The graphite is thin and transparent, and it invites us to consider not only what is drawn, but also how. It looks like he used a soft pencil, maybe even a brush, judging by the expressive quality of some of the lines. Check out the square with the two vertical lines. Is it a window, a door, or just an abstract division of space? That ambiguity is where the magic happens. It reminds me of Cy Twombly's notebooks, this sense of capturing fleeting thoughts and impressions. Art is like that, an ongoing dialogue, a dance between intention and accident.