Paardenhoofd en een paard en wagen, mogelijk op de Dam in Amsterdam. c. 1900 - 1923

This drawing of a horse’s head and carriage, possibly in Amsterdam’s Dam Square, was made by George Hendrik Breitner in the late 19th or early 20th century. It's all about the energy of mark-making! You can see the artist working through the image, wrestling with the lines. The texture of the paper is really important here. The rough quality of the drawing lends the image a sense of immediacy, as though Breitner was trying to capture a fleeting moment. The smudged areas around the horse’s head give the drawing a dreamlike quality. The way he’s built up the image with layers of charcoal feels so bodily; it's like he’s sculpting the image out of the ground. There's a similar attitude in Degas' work. Both artists are really interested in the process of seeing and recording the world around them. Art is always about this back-and-forth between intention and accident, control and letting go.