Abklatsch van de krijttekening op blad 17 recto 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this chalk drawing at some point in his life, and it now lives at the Rijksmuseum. It is what he called an ‘Abklatsch’, a transfer of a chalk drawing. I like to imagine Israels in his studio, chalk in hand, making marks on paper with a softness that is hard to achieve with paint. I wonder if he liked the way the chalk felt, smooth and responsive in his hand. This one is particularly evocative because you can see the way the dust lifts off the page. It gives the figure a ghostly, transient quality. It reminds me of Man Ray’s photograms, where he placed objects on photographic paper and exposed them to light, creating ghostly silhouettes. Israels' ‘Abklatsch’ is like a drawing version of that. Artists are always finding new ways to capture the world around them. They're in constant conversation with one another across time. Like, what if you saw this in a dream?