Liggend vrouwelijk naakt met gesloten ogen 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this drawing of a reclining nude, ‘Liggend vrouwelijk naakt met gesloten ogen’, with pencil on paper. The beauty of a drawing like this lies in the immediacy of the mark making, it's all about the process, the artist thinking through the model and trying to grasp the essence of their pose. What I find interesting is the way Israels uses hatching to model the form. The shading of the torso uses diagonal lines, varying the pressure and the spacing to create a sense of depth and volume. See how some lines are bolder, more insistent, while others are light and tentative? You can really feel the artist working, trying to find the form. Look at the area around the breasts, it almost becomes a separate study in itself, a little like a Cubist exploration of form. Israels’s approach reminds me of Degas, who also loved to capture intimate, everyday moments with a similar kind of directness. It's like we're eavesdropping on a private moment, catching a glimpse of the artist's thought process as they work.