Gevels c. 1900 - 1923

This drawing, *Gevels*, was made by George Hendrik Breitner, and is held at the Rijksmuseum. You can see how Breitner approached the page so directly, with such immediacy. The lines here are raw, they’re searching for something, and you can sense the speed of the artist's hand. Look at that top left corner – it’s almost like a little dance, a little scribble that suddenly defines a shape. It's a series of light touches. There’s a lightness and an incompleteness that gives the piece its energy, its feeling of being caught in the moment. You can see a little of what was going on in his mind. Breitner seems to be in conversation with artists like James McNeill Whistler, also drawn to urban scenes. But here, the conversation is more about the act of seeing. The act of trying to catch a glimpse of the world, before it changes again.