Reclining Female Nude 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this 'Reclining Female Nude' with pencil on paper, and it's all about the immediacy of the mark. There's a real confidence in the economy of line, and a sense of the artist working quickly to capture the pose. The drawing is all about texture, surface, and the physicality of the medium, right? The lines are thin, almost transparent, with a lightness of touch, but they build up in certain areas to suggest shadow and depth. Israels isn't trying to hide the process, you can see how he's thinking through the form, correcting lines, and letting the pentimenti remain as part of the image. The way the lines of the leg fade out towards the foot gives a wonderful sense of the pose continuing beyond the edge of the paper, like a fragment of a larger whole. Israels’s work reminds me of Degas, particularly his pastels. Both artists are interested in capturing fleeting moments and the human form in motion, but ultimately, art is about a conversation across time. It's about embracing ambiguity and multiple interpretations, and the drawing leaves plenty of room for our imagination to wander.