Gezicht in Amsterdam, mogelijk de Dam c. 1902 - 1914

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of a view in Amsterdam, maybe the Dam, with pencil on paper. It’s a drawing, so there’s no color to speak of, but the way Breitner layers these almost frantic lines, it feels like he’s trying to capture the speed of modern life. Look at the left page – you can almost hear the clatter of the horse-drawn trams he's sketched. And then there’s the right side, a kind of haze of vertical lines suggesting a building or maybe just atmosphere. It’s like he’s saying, "I can’t quite get a handle on this, it’s all moving too fast." Breitner, like Manet, always strikes me as someone who was looking for ways to capture the fleeting nature of experience. And that search, that process, that's what makes it feel so alive, even now.