Gezicht op huizen aan het Sophiaplein (Muntplein) en een gezicht op de Singel ter hoogte van de Paleisstraat te Amsterdam c. 1903

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of the Sophiaplein and the Singel in Amsterdam using pen and ink on paper. The quick, almost frantic lines capture an urban landscape, split across two pages of a sketchbook. Breitner's approach here departs from the polished, academic styles of his time, favoring instead a raw, immediate representation. The structural elements are reduced to their barest essentials, with lines suggesting form and space rather than defining them. We see a semiotic reduction to the basic codes that constitute the image of a city: buildings rendered as simple rectangles, and the Singel as a series of horizontal lines. Breitner destabilizes the conventional artistic values, focusing not on beauty, but on the structural essence of urban life. It challenges the viewer to piece together the image, actively participating in the construction of meaning. This sketch functions as a record and as an investigation into the fundamental elements of visual representation.