Hoofden 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this drawing, 'Hoofden,' with pencil on paper, and you can see it here at the Rijksmuseum. It’s like he's captured a fleeting thought, or a half-remembered dream. I can almost feel the scratch of the pencil across the page, the way he’s built up the shadows with these quick, nervous lines. Israels is figuring something out as he goes, letting the image emerge from the white space. What was he thinking, what did he want to convey, and what did he want to leave unsaid? It reminds me of some of Manet’s sketches, the way he could suggest a whole world with just a few strokes. It's like a painter’s shorthand, a private language that we’re lucky enough to glimpse. The conversation between artists over time is so beautiful: one begins where the other ends and adds to the ongoing narrative. It's never really about perfect representation, but about feeling, suggestion, and the joy of mark-making.