Czobel Béla 1957 Női Fej 1957

Bela Czobel drew this Woman’s Head in 1957, probably using charcoal, maybe even ink. I imagine him sketching rapidly, reworking lines, letting some details emerge while others dissolve into abstraction. Looking at this portrait, I think of other artists who’ve explored similar approaches to figuration, like Giacometti or Paula Modersohn-Becker. There's something about the intensity of the gaze that reminds me of their work. In the upper part of the drawing, the scribbled foliage seems to mirror the woman’s internal state. The marks are kind of restless, as if Czobel was searching for a way to capture something elusive. It is as if he was trying to capture the essence of the sitter. What I love about painting and drawing is that it’s always a conversation with the past and the present. Artists build on each other's ideas, pushing boundaries, and finding new ways to see the world. With its ambiguity and open-endedness, Czobel’s drawing invites us to bring our own interpretations, and consider painting as an embodied form of expression.