Sitzender Frauenakt auf einem Stuhl 1936

This pencil drawing of a seated nude was made by Hermann Lismann, and is now at the Städel Museum. Look at the way Lismann has built up the image using line, hatching, and tonal variation. What was he thinking when he made this? He probably started with a rough layout of the composition, focusing on the model's pose and the chair's structure. Then he would have returned to add details, slowly, shaping the contours of the body and the subtle gradations of light and shadow. Notice the subtle changes in pressure of his pencil to achieve the soft, almost ghostly effects here. It makes me think of artists like Lucian Freud, who worked from life and really got into the nitty-gritty of skin, bone, and flesh. It’s like they're trying to figure out what it means to be human, one line at a time. It’s all a conversation, isn’t it?