Portret van een onbekende man c. 1915s - 1925s

Isaac Israels made this portrait of an unknown man using pencil on paper. Israels really goes for it with these bold lines, doesn’t he? It’s like he’s thinking out loud, figuring out the face as he goes. For me, art making is a process, a kind of dance between intention and improvisation. Look at the way the pencil scratches across the surface. The hatching creates a sense of depth and shadow, but it’s also raw and immediate, almost like a snapshot of a thought. There's a real directness here. See how the lines around the face are tentative and searching, but then the shading is much more decisive. That area anchors the whole thing. It's like the artist is both present and absent, revealing and concealing, all at once. This reminds me a little of Käthe Kollwitz’s drawings – that same intensity and commitment to capturing the human condition. It’s all about gesture, feeling, and the ongoing conversation between artists across time. And, like any good work of art, it invites us to bring our own interpretations and experiences to the table.