Liggende kat 1880 - 1882

George Hendrik Breitner created this drawing, whose title translates to 'Lying Cat', with pencil on paper, and it is now held in the Rijksmuseum. The light and airy sketch on a modest scale may evoke a sense of lightness. Note the economy of line. Breitner has not laboured in the production of this sketch, but he has offered us, with the simplest means, an outdoor scene. The figures are summarily yet clearly drawn, the artist using line not to denote volume or mass, but simply to denote form. The composition gives us a sense of space, with the figures arranged on a plane running back into the picture. Breitner here emphasizes line and form over detail, and that is where the beauty of the work resides. We are left to find our own meaning in the sketch, and that is where the true value of the work lies.