Paarden bij een voederbak 1881 - 1883

Editor: This is "Horses at a Feeding Trough," a pencil drawing by George Hendrik Breitner, sometime between 1881 and 1883. It’s housed here at the Rijksmuseum. It strikes me as very fragmented and fleeting. What do you make of it? Curator: Fleeting, yes, precisely! It’s a sketchbook page, raw and immediate, capturing a moment in time before it gallops away. Breitner, that sly observer of Amsterdam life, wasn’t after polished perfection here. Instead, he used these quick sketches, little whispers on paper, to get at the essence of movement and form. Doesn’t it feel more like a memory, or a feeling, than a photograph? What does it say to you about the lives of working animals at the time? Editor: It feels…unfinished, but deliberately so? Like he wasn’t interested in every detail, just the overall impression of the scene. There is something compelling in how suggestive the marks are. The style definitely screams impressionism. Curator: Exactly! It is very economical – like a musical score indicating the minimum number of notes to express something complex. He's capturing a feeling, a raw impression of the moment. This, in turn, conveys to us, in just a few strokes, a sense of their reality; a fleeting glimpse of the city as an organism. Does the minimal composition give it a certain character? Editor: Absolutely. It gives it a feeling of authenticity, like we're looking at something truly spontaneous. You almost feel like you are looking over the artist’s shoulder! I’ve learned a great deal from this quick sketch! Curator: Me too! Each line is loaded with information, hinting at muscles and bone under the horses' hides. This is so much more than meets the eye. A true window into a world often unseen.