Mohamed Salek, dit Doud Moura, Sultan du Ouadai. Fort Lamy 1931

Alexandre Jacovleff made this portrait of Mohamed Salek in Fort Lamy using bold strokes of blue and charcoal. You can almost feel the scratch of the charcoal on the paper, right? I wonder what Jacovleff was thinking as he sketched? Maybe he was trying to capture the essence of Salek's power, or perhaps he was simply fascinated by the way the light played across the folds of his turban. I bet the charcoal smudged and smeared, recording every shift in Jacovleff's hand as he translated his perceptions onto the page. Look at the hands. There's a sensitivity in the way he renders them. It makes me think of Lucien Freud's portraits, where every line seems to carry the weight of a life lived. It's like artists, through their individual styles, are all part of one big conversation about how to see, how to feel, and how to translate those experiences into something tangible.