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

Isaac Israels made this sensitive drawing of an unknown bearded man, and it's currently hanging at the Rijksmuseum. Those lines, right? See how they don’t just describe the man but almost seem to feel him out? I can almost see Israels, poised with his pencil, circling around the essence of his subject. The image flickers in front of me. I imagine the artist standing there, trying to get it right, going over and over the same lines. It's like he’s capturing not just a likeness, but a fleeting impression, a mood. There's a beautiful economy to it. Like the confident strokes that suggest the slope of the sitter’s jacket. Israels zeroes in on something vulnerable, something quiet. The drawing speaks to the power of suggestion, the magic that happens when an artist trusts the viewer to fill in the gaps. I love that kind of exchange. It's a conversation across time.