Twee stadsgezichten c. 1886 - 1923

George Hendrik Breitner made these two cityscapes in pen on paper. The quick, almost frantic marks, feel like he was trying to capture a fleeting moment, a memory perhaps. You can almost hear the city's sounds in these sketches. The top sketch is bolder, more gestural, with thick lines and dense shading. The bottom one feels lighter, more open, with finer lines defining the architectural details. Look at the figures in the bottom cityscape: just a few lines, but they convey so much about movement and presence. The paper itself is aged, lending a sense of history and authenticity. I wonder about the story behind that smudge at the top. Breitner, like Degas, was fascinated by modern life, and you see that here in his attention to everyday scenes, treating the streets as a studio. There's a realness, an immediacy, in these sketches that transcends time. They remind us that art is often about process, about the artist's engagement with the world.