Portret van een onbekende man 1907 - 1912

Heinrich Krabbé made this portrait of an unknown man, probably in oil paint, sometime around 1917. The limited palette gives it a sense of calm, but there's a looseness to the brushwork that suggests the artist was more interested in the act of painting than in precise representation. Look closely and you can see how Krabbé built up the image with short, visible strokes. The way he models the form of the face, especially around the cheek and eye socket, reminds me of Cézanne. There’s an economy to it, as if Krabbé is trying to capture the essence of the man with as few marks as possible. It’s interesting how he’s left the background so undefined, almost like the figure is emerging from a fog. This reminds me that art is always a conversation across time, with each artist building on what came before, and it makes me think about how we look at art, always searching for new ways of seeing and understanding the world.