Schetsboek met 32 bladen c. 1886 - 1891

Curator: Welcome. Today, we're looking at a sketchbook from circa 1886 to 1891, containing 32 pages, created by George Hendrik Breitner. It’s comprised of drawings on paper, using ink and colored pencil. Editor: It looks…intimate. Like peeking into someone's private thoughts. There's something intensely personal about seeing the written inscriptions across this faded, brownish page. Curator: Yes, exactly! As a materialist, what strikes me is the immediacy and rawness of the object itself. The sketchbook format provides such valuable insight into Breitner’s process. Here you get to see both sketches, compositional ideas as well as private notes and thoughts, presumably relating to his creative practice. Editor: And consider how Breitner worked! The writing here is indecipherable in places; it conveys the impression of the immediacy of note-taking, so in that way it feels extremely connected with fleeting, ephemeral thoughts, almost impressions. These visual scribbles almost feel like their own visual language. Do you get a similar sense? Curator: I find myself wondering if these are preparatory sketches related to other better known paintings he created during the period, or are these images ends in and of themselves. The use of paper, ink and pencil offers Breitner the chance to convey thoughts rapidly, without concerns regarding pictorial conventions around light, shade or tonality as he would likely address in oil paint. I appreciate this tangible insight into artistic thought. Editor: Absolutely. These marks hold cultural memory as well as an archive of Breitner's creative practice. But there's an inherent sadness here, too. Perhaps it's the subdued coloration of the paper. It all feels haunted by a quiet, melancholic introspection. Curator: I can understand that interpretation. This object allows us a rare, direct connection to a prominent artist; we can witness what was in his mind during these very early, creative stages of imagining an image. Editor: Indeed. The simple visual act of bearing witness is made powerfully immediate through the act of beholding his notebook.