Man en twee vrouwen aan een tafel 1875 - 1934

Here's "Man en twee vrouwen aan een tafel", made by Isaac Israels using I'm guessing charcoal on paper. I find myself thinking about Israels’ hand moving across the surface of this page, making marks, adding more here, erasing a bit there. You can see a table and figures, but they're born out of smudges, scribbles, and erasures. The rapid strokes and the stark contrast between light and dark give it a raw, immediate feel. I imagine Israels was trying to capture a fleeting moment, the hustle and bustle of a busy café. Maybe he wanted to show the energy of the place, or the anonymity of strangers. Or perhaps, he was just doing what artists do: observing the world and trying to make sense of it with lines. It's like he was trying to build something solid out of something so fleeting. And that’s kind of what we all do, right? Each of us trying to leave a mark on the world.