Boten voor gebouwen, abklatsch van een krijttekening 1912

This is a chalk drawing by George Hendrik Breitner called "Boats near buildings" and it lives at the Rijksmuseum. It's like a ghostly image, a memory barely held on the page. The thing that hits me first is the delicacy of the marks. It’s almost a whisper of a drawing – a chalk abklatsch – where the image is transferred, leaving a faint, ethereal trace. You can see the texture of the paper coming through, like the drawing is barely there. I love the lines that suggest the boats and buildings, without fully defining them. It’s as if Breitner is trying to capture the essence of a place, a fleeting impression rather than a detailed depiction. It reminds me a little of Whistler, but maybe less about mood and more about a way of seeing things, where the sketch itself is the point. It’s like the art is not about finishing a picture, but being in the act of noticing, of translating the world through touch and material. Art as a question rather than an answer.