In Pursuit of the Moment. George Hendrik Breitner, Painter and Photographer of a Lost Age

The role played by George Hendrik Breitner (1857-1923) in the history of Dutch painting is comparable to that of Courbet or Manet in French art. Breitner's aim was to paint the history of his own era, of ordinary people, of the man and woman in the street. His themes were often brutally represented, but he saw beauty in the everyday life around him - a fairly unusual ideal for an artist in the nineteenth century. Today Breitner is recognised as the unrivalled painter of Amsterdam street life, but his fame as a photographer has also been established.