Schetsboek LVII met 29 bladen 1875 - 1934

This is Isaac Israels' sketchbook LVII, which contains 29 pages, and lives at the Rijksmuseum. Sketchbooks are interesting, aren’t they? This one's a quiet, humble object, a simple rectangle of bound paper. The cover is a pale, almost dusty yellow-beige. It looks worn, doesn’t it? You can imagine it in the artist’s pocket, or on a table, maybe smudged with paint. The Roman numerals, LVII, are written directly onto the cover. It's blue, and looks like it was applied quickly, almost carelessly. Imagine Israels grabbing the nearest pen to mark it before heading out to a cafe. It’s a direct, personal touch, a connection to the artist himself. This notebook reminds me of Cy Twombly's sketchbooks, which have the same intimate sense of an artist's inner world. These books aren’t precious, they’re the raw material of artmaking, a place for thinking and experimentation, valuing process over outcome. It’s a reminder that art is an ongoing conversation, an exchange of ideas, a place where ambiguity reigns.