Drie staande vrouwen 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made these charcoal sketches on paper, sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. Just look at the immediacy of those marks – they're so fast, so confident. You can almost see the artist hovering over the paper, trying to capture these women and the space between them. It's like he’s thinking through seeing. I love the one on the right, standing, so poised. There's so little information given, but you get a sense of her character. Then there's the other one, maybe reclining? I wonder what Israels was thinking about when he made these, was he trying to capture something fleeting, some gesture or mood? I know that feeling as a painter, trying to pin something down, something that you sense is always shifting. It reminds me a little of Degas, this feeling of trying to capture life as it’s lived. Maybe it was a moment of inspiration, but I bet it came from an ongoing conversation with other artists. That's how art works: we see, we respond, we keep the conversation going.