Paardenhoofden c. 1902 - 1914

George Hendrik Breitner made this drawing of "Paardenhoofden", or "Horse Heads", at an unknown date with pencil on paper. The sketch is like a dance of lines. It's all about the artist's process, the immediate response to what he sees, or thinks he sees, as the image flickers in and out of focus. The smudgy charcoal gives real presence to the animal subjects, but it’s the energy of the marks that really gets me going here; Breitner is feeling his way through the image with a kind of controlled frenzy. The texture of the paper, visible through the sparse marks, is key - it creates a unified surface on which the image can float, and the white space becomes as important as the marks themselves. The linear abstraction of the forms reminds me of Franz Marc’s animal paintings, where the image is constructed from a series of planes and angles. Ultimately, this drawing celebrates the fleeting, ever-changing nature of perception. Like all great art, it's a conversation, an invitation to look and think again.