Gebouwen Possibly 1907 - 1911

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of buildings with what looks like charcoal, and it’s all about the process, you know? It's like he's thinking through the shapes right on the page. I love how Breitner uses these scratchy, energetic marks to build up the forms. The charcoal is really dry and crumbly and you can see every stroke, every decision he made. Look at the way he defines the sky with these dense, diagonal lines, it’s not about realism; it's about feeling the weight and the density of the atmosphere. Then there are these sparse lines that define the building facades. It reminds me a bit of some of Philip Guston's looser drawings, where the subject is almost secondary to the act of mark-making itself. It’s like Breitner is saying, “Here’s what I see, but more importantly, here’s how I see it.” It’s not about perfection; it’s about that raw, immediate connection between the eye, the hand, and the world.