Gezicht op gebouwen te Amsterdam 1910

This double-page spread of buildings in Amsterdam was sketched by George Hendrik Breitner, probably in a notebook, using graphite. I love how immediate it feels. On the right, you can see how Breitner’s scribbly lines capture the angles of the rooftops and windows. The pencil marks are dense, full of energy. On the left page, the sketch is much fainter, more like a ghost of buildings. It makes me think about how we look at things, how we remember them. The materiality is simple – just paper and pencil – but it's the directness that gets me. It reminds me a bit of some of Philip Guston’s quick sketches, where the line is all about feeling and not about being perfect. With both artists there's this sense that art is a conversation, a way of thinking out loud. It’s never about having the last word, but about keeping the dialogue going.