Zittende boerin 1884 - 1886

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of a seated farmer's wife. The black chalk strokes create a study in contrasts; the left page a flurry of movement, the right page an ethereal expanse. Breitner's use of line is striking. On the left, the dense, almost frantic, strokes define the figure with an immediacy, capturing the weight and texture of her clothing. This is juxtaposed with the right page, where faint, ghost-like lines suggest another form, barely there, fading into the void. What does it mean? The sketch isn't just a study of form; it's a visual paradox. The density of the left figure, so grounded in its materiality, is set against the ephemeral nature of the right. Breitner isn't simply depicting a subject; he's engaging with the very act of seeing, of making present and absent simultaneously. It's an essay on presence and absence.