Annotatie c. 1915s - 1925s

This page, by Isaac Israels, is a kind of field of pale possibility. I can just imagine him with his materials, maybe in a studio, or outside even. The page looks like it has been handled and traveled. I'm seeing traces, faded marks, ghostly remnants. It reminds me of a Cy Twombly painting where the history of touch and mark-making becomes the subject. It’s like, what is a painting but a record of decisions, actions, and erasures? I wonder what Israels was thinking at this time in his practice. Was he looking at other people's work? Was he talking to other artists? I imagine this page as a site of contemplation, a surface for testing ideas. Maybe it led to something else, or maybe it was just an end in itself. Whatever the case, artists are always in conversation with each other across time. It makes you think about painting as a way of thinking, right? It’s never really fixed.