Vrouwelijk naakt, leunend op een arm 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this drawing of a reclining nude with graphite on paper. You can see the artist feeling his way around the form, searching with delicate lines, sometimes overlapping and correcting, to create the contours of her body. I wonder what it was like for Israels to be in the studio with his model. I imagine him circling the subject, studying the planes of her face and torso, trying to capture her pose with just a few, economical lines. You can almost sense the intimacy of that moment, the quiet focus and intense observation. Look how the lines vary in weight and intensity. See the heavier marks that define the shadow under her breast, compared with the lighter, almost tentative strokes that sketch her hair. It’s as if Israels is feeling his way through the light and shade, using line to describe both form and atmosphere. These kinds of figure drawings are part of a long conversation between artists, who study and learn from each other, building on the past to discover new ways of seeing.