George Hendrik Breitner

The Rijksmuseum purchased its first modern painting, namely Breitner’s The Yellow Riders (‘In the Dunes’), as early as 1886. This immediately put the artist’s name on the map. The horsemen galloping at full speed are typical of his early work: he enjoyed painting military manoeuvres and never lost his love of horses.

Inspired by the modern, raw life described in the novels of popular French writers, Breitner decided in the mid-1880s to become le peintre du peuple (the painter of ordinary people) – after Émile Zola's phrase. He sought lower-class types as models: labourers and servant girls from working-class neighbourhoods play the leading roles in his paintings.

Breitner took photographs from 1889 onwards, mainly as study material for his paintings. The direct photographic viewpoint is reflected in his paintings, for instance The Singel Bridge at Paleisstraat in Amsterdam (header). Such a frontal viewpoint and a partially cropped figure were novel at that time.

Between 1893 and 1896 Breitner painted a remarkably charming series of pictures of a young woman in a kimono. It was an experiment in Japonisme, the term coined to describe the craze for all things Japanese at the time. Sixteen-year-old housemaid Geesje Kwak was his model, always shown in a different pose and wearing a blue, red or white kimono.

Breitner lived like a real bohemian. Women, drinking and a chronic lack of money remained constants throughout his life. Ultimately, however, only one thing really mattered to him: his art.

In addition to being a painter of the working class, Breitner also portrayed the new parts of Amsterdam under construction. His paintings make it possible to follow the city’s rapid transformation around 1900. Here we see a snowy Oosterpark in the making with the tall houses of a new city district rising in the background.

Breitner presented a powerful image of the modern city on large canvases. The wooden ships in the foreground here are stuck in the ice in the frozen harbour. They form a strong contrast with the large steamships in the open water looming up in the background.

Breitner never left his house without a sketchbook; no less than 119 of them are in the Rijksmuseum! He drew anytime and anywhere. There were studies of models, of course, but most are quick impressions of life on the street, in cafes and in trams. And of horses – lots of horses.

Of course, Breitner's style and especially his portrayal of people, met with criticism. One reviewer even compared his ordinary women to dogs’ heads! Informed by his experiences with photography, his depictions with rigorous cropping were not understood at first and therefore often considered unfinished.

In 1902 Breitner was the first contemporary artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Amsterdam artists' association Arti & Amicitiae. He had arrived as an artist. While his work lost the power to provoke it once had, it has remained popular to this day.