Gezicht op een straat met een rij bomen c. 1909

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of a street with trees, with what looks like charcoal, and you can really see his process. The image is built up from so many marks, they're almost like a kind of shorthand. What I find interesting is how the trees in the foreground are so present, almost blocking our view. Breitner seems to want us to really feel the atmosphere, the light filtering through the branches, and the energy of the street peeking through. Look at the marks suggesting leaves, they are smudged and scrubbed into the page. It feels like he worked fast. I wonder if he was trying to capture a fleeting moment, a particular kind of light, before it disappeared. Breitner was a contemporary of Van Gogh, and you can see a similar interest in everyday life. But where Van Gogh uses explosive color, Breitner sticks to a more muted palette, focusing on tone and texture. It shows how many different ways there are of seeing and experiencing the world through art.