Stående model 1914 - 1915

Karl Isakson made this nude study with pencil on paper, sometime between 1878 and 1922, and it is now in the collection of the SMK. It's so direct, right? Like, here’s a body. You can almost feel Isakson thinking aloud, wrestling with form through each stroke. The way he defines the back with a single, confident line, and then contrasts it with the zig-zag of the skirt, it is as though he were trying to define a volume with as few marks as possible. Look at the hatched lines around the legs. They're not just shading; they're a kind of shorthand for texture, weight, presence. The beauty of a drawing like this lies in its openness, its willingness to let us see the artist thinking. I see echoes of Matisse in its simplicity. It is a testament to the power of suggestion in art, how a few well-placed lines can evoke so much.