Figuurstudies c. 1880 - 1906

Curator: Here we have a look into George Hendrik Breitner's sketch book. The Rijksmuseum holds this work, called "Figuurstudies", pencil on paper, from the period between approximately 1880 and 1906. What is your initial reaction to this drawing? Editor: It feels like a half-remembered dream, those blurry moments before you fully wake up. Disjointed, fragmented...almost anxious. It’s fascinating how a few pencil lines can convey that. Curator: Breitner certainly captured movement, he explored urban life, his flaneur nature made him register fleeting moments. The various angles and rapidly drawn lines make me wonder what he was aiming to retain or investigate. Editor: True, there's definitely a sense of capturing something raw and immediate. Look at how lightly some of those figures are sketched—barely there. Like he's trying to pin down something before it vanishes. There's a real tenderness in the ephemerality of these figures, even if some of them feel cropped. It’s intimate. Curator: What do you think these figurative gestures communicate about fin-de-siècle Dutch society? I look at them as studies rather than mere sketches. There is an exploration into attitudes towards identity, for instance. Editor: Perhaps it shows the artist’s mind at work. Breitner is filtering through a constant flow of sensory information to distill a moment into an essence. So there is not that social intent, which is definitely also plausible in other artworks by him. I look at it as capturing the way humans themselves observe; there are not clear delineations when our brains grasp fleeting imagery from real life. Curator: I concede there is both subjectivity and documentary-style intention going on at the same time in this impressive sketchbook. Editor: Exactly. Maybe Breitner is more preoccupied with capturing something internal rather than solely external, then; I wonder how society can exist independent of ourselves. Curator: A vital nuance in reading this artist's body of work; thank you for sharing. Editor: A pleasure! The sketchbook of any artist, in a way, shows a record of that society nonetheless!