Artists’ sketchbooks are not merely documents of their artistic development or records of work on a particular piece. Much as a sketch captures an initial creative impulse and appeals through its dynamism and immediacy, these notebooks bring together distinctive views of the subject depicted – or of the surroundings the artist moves through or inhabits. Travel sketchbooks are especially evocative in this regard. Each scene bears witness to the astonishment a place aroused in a sensitive observer, as well as to the desire to preserve the memory faithfully; the notebook thus composes an image of the world from inspiring landscapes and episodes – later to be deepened or refined through painting or graphic work.

At the same time, the choice of subjects reveals the artist’s sensibility, often resonating with the (inter)generational ideals of beauty. Artists, for example, are repeatedly drawn to waterscapes, whose reflections subtly suggest what the surrounding world mirrors back. While August Piepenhagen was enchanted by the harmony of the river island and its varied greenery – a symbol of privacy and independence –, Zdenka Braunerová was captivated by the dramatic Rhine with its depths, evoked by rocking ships. In Belgium, Jaroslav Skrbek sketched only exotic animals in the Antwerp Zoo and, characteristically, Bruges, one of the Symbolism “emblematic” cities, famed for its water canals and immortalized by Georges Rodenbach in his novel.