Gezicht op het Hofje Zorgen Vrij te Rotterdam c. 1902

George Hendrik Breitner captured this view of the Hofje Zorgen Vrij in Rotterdam with pencil on paper. I can imagine Breitner standing there, squinting at the scene, quickly putting down the bones of what he sees. It’s all about gesture: tentative, searching lines trying to capture the essence of these buildings. Look at the textures he creates just by varying the pressure of the pencil – dark, assertive strokes against light, feathery ones. This drawing feels like a moment of inquiry. Breitner is figuring things out. There’s an incredible sense of immediacy, of the artist’s hand moving across the paper in response to what he sees. It's a conversation between eye, hand, and subject. I bet he was inspired by other artists. We all are! He's probably looking at the work of other draftsmen who are exploring urban scenes in a similarly direct, honest way. It's all one big conversation in art history.