Studieblad met lezende (?) vrouw en vrouw met een kind op schoot 1834 - 1911

This is a graphite drawing by Jozef Israëls, whose title translates to "Study Sheet with Reading Woman and Woman with a Child on her Lap". Note the contrast in techniques. On the left, the static figure of the mother and child is created with short, controlled strokes. On the right, wild, frenetic lines sketch the face of a woman, presumably the reader. Israëls is less interested in representing the figures naturalistically. Instead, he uses line to convey the visual field of the figures. The density of graphite around the reader’s face gives way to thinner lines on the bottom, suggesting a peripheral vision. The sketch uses line and composition as a language, communicating perspective through variations in density and the orientation of the lines. The drawing's form becomes an echo of perception itself.