Annotaties 1887 - 1934

This is Isaac Israels’ notebook opened to a page with annotations. Israels seems to work with a light touch, capturing impressions more than concrete details. It looks as though he is working out the location of places with handwritten text on the left and abstract sketches on the right. The paper has a soft, creamy tone, aged with time, and the graphite markings appear almost like whispers on its surface. In the lower left corner, there’s a cluster of jagged lines made with what looks like a blunt pencil, digging into the page with more force than the other marks. You can see the quick energy of the artist's hand; the materiality of the paper and pencil becomes part of the expression. Israels’ work feels like a cousin to the sketches of Constantin Guys. Both artists were interested in capturing the fleeting moments of modern life, not in a polished way but with a raw, immediate sensibility. Ultimately, art isn’t about perfection but about the ongoing conversation between seeing, thinking, and feeling.