Head of a Woman n.d.

This is Anders Zorn's sketch, Head of a Woman, made with graphite on paper. The quickly drawn lines give a sense of immediacy. The face emerges from a mass of layered strokes that define the woman's hair and the shadows of her features. The drawing is unfinished. Zorn’s open form destabilizes conventional notions of portraiture, as the subject is suggested rather than definitively rendered. He captures the essence of a fleeting moment. Zorn uses hatching and cross-hatching, allowing the white of the paper to interact with the graphite, creating a play of light and shadow that animates the composition. The strategic incompleteness of the image prompts us to consider the nature of representation itself. It points to how much the viewer contributes in completing the image through perception and interpretation, inviting a dynamic relationship between the artwork and its audience.