Standing Female Nude 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this pencil sketch of a standing female nude in, well, we don't know exactly when. But look at the nervous energy in those lines! You can almost feel the artist circling his subject, trying to capture the essence of her form. I wonder what Israels was thinking as he rapidly laid down these marks. Was he trying to nail the anatomy, or was he after something more elusive, like the way the light glanced off her skin? Or maybe it was a pure, sensual response to the model in front of him. That flurry of lines around the head, for example—is it hair, or is it a halo of energy? It reminds me of some of Degas's more frenetic drawings, where the line seems to be searching, probing, never quite settling. It’s like he's wrestling with the image, trying to pin it down. And in that struggle, something real emerges.