Studie c. 1883 - 1885

George Hendrik Breitner made this study with charcoal on paper, and it resides at the Rijksmuseum. Breitner was a part of the Amsterdam Impressionism movement in the Netherlands, around the turn of the 20th century. Artists like Breitner wanted to capture the everyday life around them. It is important to understand the context of art education at the time. Artists were moving away from the established art academies. This art is part of a wider turn to a realist depiction of everyday life. It focuses on the transient moments of modern life, rather than historical or mythological subjects that dominated academic art. To understand Breitner’s art, one can study archival materials such as exhibition reviews and artists' letters. This helps to better understand the place of this drawing in the cultural field. Remember that the meaning of art is never fixed, but shifts with time and place.