Vogels en honden aan de Krom Boomssloot te Amsterdam c. 1897

Curator: Look at this drawing; it's by Willem Witsen, titled "Vogels en honden aan de Krom Boomssloot te Amsterdam," dating from around 1897. It’s rendered in pencil and charcoal. What springs to mind when you see it? Editor: Hmm, fleeting, almost like a dream glimpsed through charcoal smudges. A watery scene… or is it supposed to be ice, given how skeletal those trees are? Those scuttling dogs give the whole thing an energy that's anxious yet vital. Curator: That liveliness you perceive, yes. Witsen was deeply engaged in depicting Amsterdam’s pulse during the late 19th century. He captured not just buildings, but the dynamic everyday lives unfolding around them. These quick studies he produced shed light on his methods. He liked to quickly capture street scenes and atmosphere of places as source material for his other artworks. Editor: There's something unsettling in the immediacy of it though. It feels less observed and more...remembered? Or perhaps anticipated, some scene from a future past life, playing out right now as some ghostly drama in our daily existence. I also imagine Witsen with numb fingers quickly dashing it to his sketch book while out walking one wintery day. Curator: Witsen lived for some time at the very canal depicted here! He appreciated how rapidly the urban environment evolved. How could someone dedicated to capturing atmosphere cope with a society changing fast? The use of new photography comes to mind. Did sketching become more about finding specific things for reference and then the charcoal applied in studio perhaps? Editor: Possibly! The drawing feels deliberately rough and evocative rather than precise in detail; it conveys a kind of felt truth beyond mere representation, almost as if trying to make those scurrying little souls jump to life before you while barely committing them to paper, so the sketch would still remain a sort of ghostly trace in your hand… it could leap into an animation right here in this museum, even after more than a century! Curator: The raw quality is magnetic; it allows for introspection on an almost visceral level. To contemplate the ephemeral, fleeting, qualities of art is to think also about ourselves and our brief impact. Editor: So true. A conversation across time and medium.