Schetsboek met 24 bladen Possibly 1882 - 1886

Curator: Let's take a look at this sketchbook, dating from around 1882 to 1886, attributed to George Hendrik Breitner. It is made with drawing on paper and is part of the Rijksmuseum collection. The marbled effect on its cover fascinates me. Editor: It really draws you in, doesn't it? It looks like a turbulent dream rendered in stone. I immediately feel a kind of intimacy with it, you know? A glimpse into an artist’s private world. Curator: Exactly, and consider how this object itself embodies a workspace and a portable support structure that enabled a creative production in the making. The materiality of this book speaks volumes. You know Breitner really committed himself to documenting the city of Amsterdam and a book such as this gives one an immediate grasp of its significance for that. Editor: It is beautiful how a very everyday thing as a sketchbook cover manages to conjure very elemental thoughts: it feels as if time and weather and movement had some effect on it, just like those drawings in its pages. And in some strange way, it even seems very now, quite fashionable. It could be a vintage fabric! Curator: I'm particularly interested in the book as a physical thing—the paper, the binding. Breitner could quickly access them to document the ephemeral nature of the urban scenes, its materiality really mattered! And its form must have played a role. It can slip away so quickly, which in turn speaks of the importance of immediate access to documentation, of creating it quickly as the events play out, even disappear... Editor: Do you think Breitner chose that pattern, or did it simply happen? Was it a coincidence that mirrors his landscape studies? Curator: Whether conscious or not, that marbled effect reflects a very organic aesthetic that was becoming mainstream, perhaps reflecting a return to forms present in nature which provides its own, often beautiful patterns. A mass-produced version perhaps for that "organic touch". Editor: Right. This little object gives an unexpected keyhole to look into a long bygone time and how to make sense of a space from within a soul. Curator: I agree, a humble yet revealing witness. Editor: It’s funny how sometimes it’s the frame that tells you as much about the picture it holds, or is holding still...