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

This is a drawing by Isaac Israels, and looking at it, I can almost feel the graphite in my own hand. The man emerges from a flurry of marks, a storm of hatching and cross-hatching that somehow coalesces into a face. I wonder what Israels was thinking as he made it. Was he trying to capture a likeness, or was he more interested in the energy of the lines themselves? See how the marks around the face are more dense, creating shadows that give the portrait depth, while other marks float away from the face in wild abandon, as though eager to break free from it. It makes me think about other artists like, say, Marlene Dumas, who also use loose lines and open space to capture something essential about their subjects. These artists remind us that a drawing isn't just a record of what we see, but a record of how we see, think, and feel.