Rokin en de Oude Turfmarkt te Amsterdam, gezien vanuit De l'Europe 1912 - 1919

This is a George Hendrik Breitner drawing of Rokin en de Oude Turfmarkt in Amsterdam, most likely made with graphite or charcoal. Look at how the lines quickly dart across the page! There’s a real sense of energy and immediacy, like Breitner was trying to capture the scene before it disappeared. I can almost feel what it might have been like for Breitner sitting there with his sketchbook, trying to capture the light, the buildings, the reflections in the water. I bet he was thinking about all the other artists who had tried to capture the same thing. There's something really special about the texture of the paper, you can almost feel the tooth of it. And the way he's used the charcoal, smudging it in places to create shadows and depth, is really masterful. You can see him wrestling with the scene, trying to make sense of it. It reminds me that art is all about dialogue, about artists talking to each other across time and space. It's a beautiful reminder that art is a way of making sense of the world, even when things feel uncertain or ambiguous.