Stadsgezicht c. 1900 - 1901

George Hendrik Breitner captured this city view with a pencil, etching the essence of urban life onto paper. Notice how the simple lines denoting buildings are stacked, each form leaning against the other, creating a sense of communal weight and history. Consider how the bareness of the trees mirrors a similar form in other images of decay and rebirth, stretching back to antiquity. In the Renaissance, we see the motif of the bare tree used to convey melancholia. Here, the motif of the tree and its branches seems to stretch upwards and grasp at the sky, just as one remembers it from the classical rendering of Daphne, frozen in time and stretching towards the heavens. This constant return to familiar shapes and structures reminds us that art, like memory, is not linear. It circles back, reshaping itself.