Man met stok, zittend op een trap c. 1915s - 1925s

Isaac Israels made this quick sketch of a man with a stick sitting on a staircase with pencil on paper. I’m always fascinated by the artist's initial marks, the ones that feel like a beginning, right? There’s a vulnerability in sketching - a kind of openness and directness. You can see the artist grappling with perspective and form, trying to capture a fleeting moment. It’s like they're saying: “Here, I'm figuring it out as I go.” I can almost feel Israels’ hand moving across the page, those lines building up to create the figure, the stairs, the shadows. He’s really thinking about the texture of the steps and the weight of the man sitting there. It’s not just a record of what he saw but a record of how he saw it, you know? And that’s what makes it so alive, so relatable.