Portret van een Soendanese man 1920

Willem Witsen made this portrait of a Sundanese man with pastels on paper, but when? The beauty of pastels is that they're so immediate; you can get right in there and build up layers with your fingers, like Witsen has done here. The soft, hazy quality gives the piece a dreamlike feel, like a memory fading at the edges. Look closely, and you can see the individual strokes that create the man's features. The subtle shading around his eyes and mouth gives him a real sense of depth and presence. The crown is made up of individual strokes that give it a textured look. It is so detailed, and it stands out from the whole image. The almost monochromatic palette gives the image a quiet, introspective feel. Witsen's use of pastels reminds me of the work of Edgar Degas, who also loved the way pastels could capture fleeting moments and subtle shifts in light and atmosphere. It's like they're both trying to capture something that's always just out of reach, something that can only be hinted at.