Portret van een onbekende man 1907

This is a portrait of an unknown man by Frederika Henriëtte Broeksmit made in pencil, though we don't know exactly when. It’s so immediate, you can feel the artist making one mark at a time. I love the way the pencil lines build up the dark areas to describe the man's face, especially around his eyes and mouth, which give him this incredible feeling of depth and character. The drawing captures a sense of texture and form in the man's curly hair and the folds of the scarf around his neck. I can imagine the artist must have been moving in and out, squinting and looking closely. The linear approach reminds me a little of drawings by Van Gogh; you know, that real sense of feeling your way through a face. Ultimately it's a drawing that suggests that in every mark, there's the possibility of discovering something new about the subject, but also about yourself.