Schetsboek LVI met 26 bladen 1875 - 1934

This is Isaac Israels’ sketchbook, made with graphite on paper. It’s brown, humble, and unassuming. The colour and texture is reminiscent of cardboard, as if its functional purpose as a container of drawings is prioritised over any aesthetic concerns. You can almost feel the slight tooth of the paper. The off-centre title is scrawled on the cover, as though written in haste. This is not a precious object, but a working tool. I think about the sketches held within, quick gestures and fleeting ideas. And I think about what a painting is too, just an accumulation of gestures and ideas that, at some point, become fixed. But there’s something special about this sketchbook as it retains a connection to the artists moment to moment lived experience. Reminds me of the sketchbooks of Degas and Daumier. Ultimately art is an exchange of ideas, a conversation between artists, an ongoing process.