Selällään oleva alaston mies, luonnos 1913 - 1915

This standing nude was made by Magnus Enckell using graphite pencil. There’s something immediate and vulnerable about this sketch. You can sense the artist’s urgent need to capture the figure before him, a fleeting vision emerging from the silence of the studio. I wonder what Enckell was thinking as he drew, his hand darting across the paper. The image is mostly soft scribbles and fuzzy shading. There are hardly any proper lines. I’m drawn to the shadow behind the figure which is almost violently rendered, made up of dark and repetitive markings. This feels so unfinished and raw, like a glimpse into the artist’s private world. But that’s the beauty of drawing, isn’t it? It’s the most direct line we have to an artist's mind, showing all the questions and doubts that come with trying to make sense of the world around us. Maybe Enckell was looking at other nudes by his peers. I imagine he might have wanted to create something new and striking, something that still lingers with us today.