Vrouw c. 1915s - 1925s

This is Isaac Israels' drawing, Vrouw, made with pencil on paper. Look at the way Israels attacks the page, those scribbly dark marks that somehow describe the volume of the woman’s hair. It's like he's wrestling with the form, trying to pin it down with these urgent, searching lines. There’s a real sense of immediacy here; it's not overly precious, it’s like he’s thinking through the pencil. The marks around the shoulders, are so light they almost disappear into the page. It’s a dance between what's there and what's suggested, creating a feeling of movement, as though she’s about to shift or wake. I'm reminded of Manet’s sketches, the way he could capture a figure with just a few bold strokes. This feels like part of that same conversation, an ongoing exploration of how to see and represent the world, without getting bogged down in detail. The sketch has an interesting take on the question of when a work is complete.