Nieuwe Teertuinen te Amsterdam, gezien vanaf de Sloterdijkbrug c. 1903

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of Nieuwe Teertuinen in Amsterdam with pencil. I can imagine him perched on the Sloterdijk bridge, sketchbook in hand, trying to capture the scene before him. Look at those quick, scribbled lines. They remind me of Cy Twombly's work, all energy and raw emotion. It’s like Breitner is wrestling with the subject, trying to pin it down with a few strokes. The buildings and structures emerge from the page, not through careful rendering, but through a kind of intuitive mapping. I bet he was thinking about how to convey the essence of the place without getting bogged down in details. It's all about gesture, isn't it? That's what painting is, really – a conversation across time.