Female (Pushkin) image 1975

Here is a drawing of a female made with ink on paper by Hryhorii Havrylenko. I'm struck by the simplicity and directness of the marks. It’s like Havrylenko is thinking out loud with his pen, each line a little thought, a hesitation, a decision. I'm imagining him, maybe in a small room, the light just so, the paper in front of him, and he’s trying to capture something essential, not just a likeness but a feeling, an impression. Look at the hatching around the neck and shoulder—it's like he’s feeling the weight of the head, the way the light falls. The strokes are confident, economical. He knows exactly what he wants to say, even if he’s not quite sure how to say it. I wonder if he worked from life, or from a photograph? What I love about drawings like this is their intimacy. It's like a secret shared between the artist and the viewer, a moment of connection across time and space. Artists are always talking to each other, aren't they?