Portret van Sebald Rudolf Steinmetz 1875 - 1934

This is Isaac Israels' pencil sketch of Sebald Rudolf Steinmetz from the Rijksmuseum collection. The looseness of the strokes gives the impression that Israels was interested in capturing the immediacy of the present moment, the fleeting impression of a person sitting before him. The texture is simple and straightforward: graphite on paper. Israels uses a variety of strokes, from soft, barely-there lines to dark, emphatic marks. See how he uses dark, scribbled lines for the hair and then softer shading to describe the volume of the sitter’s face. Look at the almost frantic energy of the marks around the left of the portrait. These aren’t mistakes; they’re part of the process, a way of feeling out the form and energy of the subject. This reminds me of some of Matisse’s drawings, where he’s also feeling out the essence of a form with a kind of restless, searching line. Ultimately, art isn’t about fixed meanings but about embracing the endless possibilities of perception.