Portrait of a Woman c. 1910

Gustav Klimt made this drawing, Portrait of a Woman, with graphite on paper, and right away I’m struck by how light and tentative the marks are. It feels as though the image is emerging, ghost-like, from the paper's surface, a process of searching and finding. Looking at the way Klimt uses line, there's a real sense of fluidity. The lines of her robe, for instance, flow around her body, hinting at the patterns without fully defining them. Those spiraling, rose-like shapes are almost like thoughts or emotions, swirling around her. And notice how her face is barely there, just a few delicate lines suggesting her features. It's like she’s present and absent at the same time. This reminds me of other artists like Schiele, who also used the figure to explore states of feeling. It's a reminder that art isn't about capturing a fixed reality but about embracing ambiguity and the endless possibilities of interpretation.