Hoofd van een vrouw 1901

This is a small head of a woman by Hans Thoma, rendered with linear precision. I wonder how he built up the image, how he found his way into it. Maybe Thoma began by plotting the main shapes, lightly, tentatively. Then slowly, he must have introduced denser and more emphatic marks to give form to the woman’s face and the backdrop of landscape. I can feel Thoma’s hand moving carefully across the plate, building tone and texture with countless tiny lines. There’s something so tender in the woman’s gaze, as if Thoma was totally absorbed by her presence. It reminds me of other portraitists, like Paula Modersohn-Becker, who captured a similar sense of everyday life with those they knew. Artists see each other’s works and somehow they pass along ways of seeing and being; we can see them continuing this conversation.