Studieblad met figuren 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this drawing, ‘Studieblad met figuren’, with graphite on paper, and it’s like he was chasing something elusive, maybe the essence of a fleeting moment. I can imagine Israels in the park, quickly trying to capture something before it moved, quickly, urgently, with these scribbled lines and smudged tones. There’s this dense, shadowy mass on the left, almost like a building, and then these figures to the right that are so light and airy, they almost float. It makes you think about how the same gesture, the same kind of mark, can mean something different depending on how much pressure you put on the pencil. The figures are a tangle of lines. Each mark feels like a decision, but also like a question, a "what if?" And this conversation goes way back - think of Manet capturing modern life, or Degas' sketches of dancers. It's like artists are always picking up where others left off.