Annotaties 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made these Annotaties, sometime between 1865 and 1934. It's a page from a notebook, and what I love is that it gives us a glimpse into the artist's mind, a raw, unfiltered peek behind the scenes. What was Israels thinking? What kinds of things did he see, and how did those experiences become paintings? Each word offers a starting point for imagining the artist's experience of the world. They have a lyrical quality, as if they could be lines from a poem, or titles for an imaginary painting. I can't help but think of Cy Twombly's scribbled notations or the stream-of-consciousness writings of the Surrealists. Artists are always borrowing, stealing, riffing off of each other, across time and space. "Annotations" reminds us that art-making is not just about the final product, but also about the messy, beautiful process of thinking and seeing.