Vrouwenhoofd, in profiel 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this drawing, Vrouwenhoofd, in profiel, with pencil on paper, and it’s currently at the Rijksmuseum. The scribbly, searching lines, feel like an investigation, a thought process made visible. It's less about capturing a likeness than about the act of looking itself, the artist circling around the subject, never quite landing, but finding something more interesting in the process. There’s a real material honesty to this drawing. You can almost feel the pressure of the pencil on the page, the way the artist reworked certain areas, like the hair, with a flurry of marks. Those dense, hatched lines create a kind of visual texture, a contrast to the smoother, more tentative lines that define the face. Notice that single eye. It's the anchor of the whole composition. The artist has really dug in there, and all the marks feel like they radiate from that point. Israels' sketch reminds me a little of the raw energy you see in some of Van Gogh's drawings. They both share this sense of urgency, as if the artist is trying to capture something fleeting before it disappears. It’s a reminder that art isn’t always about perfection; it’s about the messy, beautiful, and often unresolved process of trying to make sense of the world around us.