Abklatsch van de krijttekening op blad 8 verso 1875 - 1934

This transfer of a chalk drawing by Isaac Israels is all soft charcoal greys and ghostly shadows, like a memory fading into the paper itself. It's as if the artist was trying to capture something fleeting, a whisper of an image rather than a solid form. You know, I can imagine Isaac in his studio, maybe a bit frustrated that the chalk drawing on the other side of the page was never going to be quite right, and so he presses the two sheets together. What a beautiful moment of uncertainty and the unexpected, when the artist allows the process to lead the way! It makes me think of Rauschenberg's erased de Kooning, and how the accidental and the unintentional can be just as powerful as the deliberate. The texture of the chalk, transferred so delicately, creates a sense of depth and atmosphere. It reminds me that artists are always in conversation with each other, riffing on ideas and pushing the boundaries of what painting can be.