Staande figuren, in profiel 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this drawing, Staande figuren, in profiel, with a flurry of graphite on paper. Look at how those marks build up! It’s like he’s thinking through the figures, not just drawing them, feeling their weight, and imagining their presence. I can almost see him, pencil in hand, rapidly sketching, trying to capture the essence of those standing figures. What were they talking about? What did they just see? You can feel the movement in the strokes, the artist circling around his subjects, trying to see them from every angle, condensing what he sees into a few, quick marks. Notice how the hatching creates volume. There's a conversation happening between Israels and the paper, between seeing and feeling, where uncertainty and ambiguity become the very language of his art. And that's what I love about painting and drawing, the endless possibilities that emerge from this exchange, this constant questioning and searching for meaning.