Annotaties 1875 - 1934

This piece called Annotaties, which is Dutch for annotations, was made by Isaac Israels, we don’t know when, using pencil on paper. I love seeing the physical marks of process. This piece is full of them. The graphite is pale against the aged paper, there’s a smudge in the middle like he was thinking really hard. Look closely at the pressure, where it’s dark and insistent, then light and almost disappears. You can see the way the pencil was held. You can feel the hand. There’s no attempt to disguise the workings, it’s all right there, which is part of its charm. The scrawled lines crossing through words reminds me of Cy Twombly’s scribbles, almost like a dance. It makes you consider the many, many possibilities that any artwork can offer.