Landscape near Waalsdorp, with Soldiers on Maneuver

Breitner's 'Landscape near Waalsdorp, with Soldiers on Maneuver' (1901) is an unusual subject within his oeuvre, depicting military exercises on the flat landscape between The Hague and the coast. Waalsdorp was a military training area, and the image of troops moving across open terrain reflects the Netherlands' peacetime army drills in the years before the First World War would make such manoeuvres grimly consequential. Breitner's treatment is observational rather than celebratory — soldiers are small figures absorbed into a wide, flat landscape, more topography than heroics.

The composition emphasises horizontal breadth, with figures distributed across the middle ground against a low Dutch sky. Paint is applied with Breitner's characteristic directness, the soldiers rendered as loose, energetic brushmarks rather than precisely defined forms. The overall tonality is cool and grey, suited to the damp flatlands of the Dutch coastal hinterland.