Portrait of Jules Romains 1922

Henri Le Fauconnier made this portrait of Jules Romains with charcoal, in what looks like a flurry of tonal marks and smudges. He's captured this guy in such a serious mood. I wonder about the encounter between the two men. Did Jules sit and pose, still and silent, while Henri scratched away at the paper? Did they talk about life, art, and the struggles of existence? I can imagine the way Henri's charcoal stick moved across the page, hatching and cross-hatching to build up form and shadow. Notice how the dense charcoal marks around the figure’s face creates a sense of depth. Henri would have been thinking about the great portraitists of the past and the challenge of capturing a person's likeness and essence with a humble stick of charcoal. His work reminds me of Käthe Kollwitz, another artist who used charcoal to create powerful and moving images of people and their suffering. Artists build on the work of those who came before, learning from their techniques and approaches, but always adding their unique voice and vision.