Portret van een meisje c. 1885 - 1911

Curator: Jozef Israëls, known for his deeply felt depictions of working-class life, sketched this “Portrait of a Girl” sometime between 1885 and 1911. The piece is pencil on paper. Editor: A fragile little ghost looking up, with wisps of hair escaping the page. It has the melancholy of charcoal sketches, doesn't it? Even though it is just a humble pencil drawing. Curator: Humble in materials perhaps, but rich in process. Look closely: Israëls uses the pencil to create incredible depth and emotion, a trademark found also within his oil paintings. We should be careful not to romanticize his drawing though, Israëls came from humble means himself and perhaps even considered art materials as too frivolous early in his own artistic journey. Editor: You’re right, there’s definitely a practiced hand at play. The paper shows marks, and adjustments… you can feel him thinking about the girl's inner life as he adds strokes. Curator: Precisely! Israëls belonged to The Hague School, which championed realism and capturing the everyday. While there are arguments the Dutch Masters invented art and then The Hague school invented everyday life! Editor: He definitely gets a sense of that, though it goes beyond strict realism for me. There’s almost a spiritual yearning, like the girl is looking for something… or someone. Is that too sentimental? Curator: Sentimentality in art is a concept of context and distribution more than in creation. If Israëls believed sentiment enhanced meaning, so be it. The Rijksmuseum provides an open source file for every painting precisely for this reason. One can purchase and interpret how one see's fit, provided you respect Israëls copyright! Editor: True, art democratized…or something approaching it. Still, something about that look… like she’s caught between worlds. That makes the piece so intriguing! Curator: Indeed, Israëls’s capacity to transmute humble materials to evoke potent responses makes his body of art so vital. It reminds us about the historical value found in our social reality. Editor: And me, that art continues to work its strange magic!