Portret van een onbekende man c. 1915s - 1925s

Here’s a drawing of an unknown man, by Isaac Israels, sketched in pencil. Looking at the quickness of the marks, I get the sense that it came into being fast, through intuition and the movement of the hand. I sympathise with Israels, trying to capture someone in a few lines – it’s not easy! There’s so much you want to say, and so little time. I imagine him thinking about how to capture the essence of this person, focusing on the planes of the face, the set of the shoulders, and the quick scribble of the hair. The drawing has a beautiful energy, a real sense of the artist working through the problem of how to represent someone on paper. It reminds me a little of other portraitists, like Van Gogh, who were interested in capturing the inner life of their subjects. It's like they’re all in conversation across time, inspiring each other to think about different ways of seeing and drawing. Painting, for me, is about that conversation, that exchange of ideas, and that ongoing exploration of what it means to be human. There is no one way of viewing this artwork. It embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.