Portrait of the artist I.S. Ostroukhov 1913

Ilya Repin made this drawing of I.S. Ostroukhov in 1913, and look at how he renders the forms, almost like he's sculpting them with marks. There’s something so physical about the way Repin uses charcoal here. You can almost feel the pressure of his hand as he builds up the tones. Notice the frenetic hatching marks on the sitter’s suit. It’s like a storm of energy contained within those lines. Then, look at the face – so much more softly modeled, with delicate gradations of tone. That contrast between the face and the suit is really interesting. It’s like Repin is saying something about the inner life versus the outer presentation, the private self versus the public persona. It reminds me of some of Lucien Freud’s portraiture, that same unflinching gaze and willingness to show the weight of experience. Both artists seem less interested in depicting what a person looks like, and more concerned with portraying who they are. Art's like that: a conversation across time.