Senegalese soldier 1928

Zinaida Serebriakova made this striking pastel drawing of a Senegalese soldier in 1928, and you can almost feel the chalky pigment under your fingers. It’s like she’s building up the form with layers of soft, smudgy marks. I imagine her, squinting, head tilted, trying to capture the nuances of his skin tone, the set of his jaw. The red hat pops, doesn’t it? It’s like a little flag of vibrancy against the muted background and the soldier's composed expression. There is a certain urgency to the drawing as if she wanted to record his likeness with brevity and accuracy. Notice how the lines around his white shirt and the crook of his arms are scribbled with the confidence of someone who knows exactly what they want to achieve. This reminds me of the portraiture of Alice Neel, in that it captures something of the sitter’s inner life, not just the surface appearance. All painters are in conversation, and it’s through these kinds of intimate, imperfect renderings that we understand each other.