Staande figuren 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this sketch of standing figures sometime between 1880 and 1934 with a pencil on paper. Look how the faintest marks conjure bodies. I mean, you could blink and miss them, right? What was Israels thinking, or maybe feeling, as he made these quick notations? I see him, maybe in a cafe, or on the street, seeing people, catching them on the page like fireflies. It’s amazing how a simple line can suggest a whole world. Like the one that makes the curve of a back, or the angle of a head. These aren’t portraits, exactly, more like ghosts of people. Maybe he was trying to capture something fleeting, something about being alive in the moment. We’re all just standing figures, after all, waiting to be seen.