Stadsgezicht met figuren 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this drawing of a city scene with figures, and you can see how the charcoal dust lingers on the page. You can almost imagine him out there, drawing en plein air with a stick of charcoal, trying to capture the everyday hustle. I feel like he wasn't afraid to let the marks be messy, you know? It's like he’s saying: ‘Here's the world, not perfect, a bit smudged, but full of life’. I can relate to that. There’s such immediacy in the marks, a raw energy that makes the whole scene come alive. The charcoal is applied with varying pressure and direction, creating a dynamic surface. Look at the way he renders the buildings; there’s this roughness, and yet he captures the light hitting the architecture so deftly. And the figures in the foreground, they’re like ghosts, just fleeting impressions of people passing by. It is a way of thinking about Dutch masters, like Frans Hals, and how they are connected to the world they are living in. I reckon there's a conversation across time going on here.