Poseeraava alaston mies 1902 - 1909

Magnus Enckell made this figure, 'Poseeraava alaston mies,' out of red chalk or maybe sanguine—it’s hard to tell—but just look at how freely he’s worked with the stuff. I can imagine Enckell standing before his model with a stick of chalk in his hand, his eyes bouncing between the page and the nude in front of him. He blocks in the main masses quickly with a thin wash of pigment, and then he works back into it, scrubbing here and there to give the figure some volume. Look at the way Enckell defines the man’s left leg with just a few strokes, or how he models the torso with those short, choppy lines. The whole thing is so alive and full of energy. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the page. Of course, Enckell was part of a long tradition of artists drawing from life. Think of Michelangelo, Rubens, or even Cézanne. They all grappled with the same challenges of capturing the human form on paper, and they all left their mark on the history of art.