Zittende figuren, mogelijk aan een tafel 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this drawing of seated figures, possibly at a table, with graphite on paper. Look at the scratchy, searching marks and areas of shadow – you can almost feel him circling around the image, getting closer to the feeling he wants. It’s like he’s thinking with the pencil, not just describing what he sees, but also discovering something in the process. I know that feeling so well! You look, you draw, you look again. Israels has left so much open and unresolved, inviting us to complete the picture. His teacher was Jozef Israels, his father, and he was a friend of Breitner; you can see how this work fits into the Hague School, but also goes beyond, with a distinctive modernist flavour. I love seeing how artists talk to each other across time, like pen pals, sparking new ideas and ways of seeing. This work reminds me that painting is an act of discovery, an ongoing experiment, and that's why it still feels so alive today.