Kar en een landschap met bomen 1880 - 1882

This is George Hendrik Breitner’s sketch, “Cart and a Landscape with Trees,” housed at the Rijksmuseum. Breitner, working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was deeply engaged with capturing the everyday life of Amsterdam. His artistic practice was influenced by his social democratic views and involvement with the Maatschappij voor Volksgezondheid, an organization dedicated to public health. Breitner sought to depict the lives of ordinary people in the Netherlands, but his position as a privileged man looking into the lives of the working class raises questions about perspective and representation. His sketches often show a world that is gritty and unromanticized, challenging the idealized landscapes common at the time. We might ask ourselves, what does it mean to observe and record a world that is not one’s own? What responsibility does an artist have when portraying the lives of others? How does Breitner negotiate this dynamic in his sketch?