Staande vrouw met haar armen over elkaar 1875 - 1934

Here's a pen sketch of a woman with her arms folded, sketched by Isaac Israels, maybe a century or so ago. I wonder about the blank page on the left. Was it abandoned? Did the artist intend to come back to it later? I sympathize with the artist, trying to capture the essence of a person with just a few lines, the difficulty of getting it just right. Look at those marks making up the woman's face! Quick, confident, but also sensitive. A tangle of marks, somehow, creates a face. It reminds me of Degas, of Lautrec, of all those artists hanging out in cafes, sketching people as they passed by, trying to freeze a moment in time. But for me, this is more about the act of looking, of seeing, of trying to understand. It’s a conversation between the artist, the subject, and, now, us. It is unfinished, so the conversation continues...