Schetsboek met 39 bladen 1896 - 1897

This is George Hendrik Breitner's sketchbook, containing 39 pages, currently held at the Rijksmuseum. Breitner, living from 1857 to 1923, navigated a rapidly changing world, marked by industrialization and shifting social structures. Sketchbooks such as this are deeply personal objects. Within the pages of this book, Breitner would have explored preliminary ideas that would later become completed paintings, drawings, or photographs. Breitner's work often captured the energy of urban life, the dynamism of working-class individuals, particularly women, in the streets of Amsterdam. He was interested in the immediacy of lived experience. His subjects range from intimate portraits to busy street scenes. Consider the sketchbook as an intimate space where Breitner was able to reflect the world around him. These blank pages served as a laboratory, a place where observations turned into art. The sketchbook invites us to consider the artist's perspective, to see through his eyes the world he sought to capture and understand.