Studie, mogelijk een stadsgezicht met bomen c. 1886 - 1923

George Hendrik Breitner made this study, possibly a cityscape with trees, with pencil on paper. It's all about the materiality here, the way the pencil drags across the page and leaves a trace. It's not trying to trick you into thinking it's a real place, it's more about the act of looking and the process of trying to capture something fleeting. I'm drawn to the vertical lines on the left, how they seem to suggest the trunks of trees, but then dissolve into a jumble of other marks. It's like Breitner is showing us how our brains try to make sense of the world, how we grasp at familiar shapes and patterns, even when the evidence is ambiguous. It reminds me a little of Cezanne, who was also interested in breaking down our perception of reality into its component parts. Ultimately, this drawing is a reminder that art isn't about perfect representation, it's about the messy, imperfect process of trying to understand the world around us.