Studie 1884 - 1886

Curator: Oh, I'm drawn to the vulnerability of this image. Editor: It looks like a ghostly apparition caught on paper. What do you make of it? Curator: What you're observing here is “Studie,” a graphite and pencil drawing by George Hendrik Breitner, created sometime between 1884 and 1886. It currently resides in the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Rijksmuseum, wow. This reminds me of sketches you might find tucked in a long-lost book in someone’s attic! Curator: Notice the sitter's headwear, the clothing. It evokes certain formal aspects typical of the Dutch Golden Age, albeit in a radically abstracted manner. What feelings does that create for you, especially when the sketchiness brings it right into Breitner's present moment? Editor: I find it has a wistful quality to it—like a memory trying to surface, but only fragments coming into view. It's also interesting to think of the implied narrative surrounding their costume. Curator: Exactly. Costume is such a charged symbolic form. We recognize historical fashion cues in the forms, like half-remembered figures from a distant past trying to re-emerge. Perhaps Breitner is thinking about themes of class, or history, maybe he is experimenting with form. Editor: Yes. It almost doesn't matter WHO the subject *is*. The essence lies in how the memory persists. Curator: Perhaps the sketchiness adds a feeling of inaccessibility. Like history and the personal melting together. Editor: True, like catching glimpses through fog. It leaves us with so many questions... Why this pose? This individual? It feels incomplete in the best possible way, like potential yet to be formed. Curator: Yes, a quiet intimacy into a mind at work. I am going to have to think about this some more, and research the costume for what that suggests symbolically! Editor: Ditto! This calls for a trip to the library, to uncover what other echoes of figures this contains! Thanks!