Schetsboek LVI met 26 bladen 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made this sketchbook, entitled ‘Schetsboek LVI met 26 bladen’, sometime between 1865 and 1934. I love that Isaac Israels kept sketchbooks. It makes me want to rifle through the pages, even though I know they're private and intimate and not for me. I wonder what it was like for Israels to carry this thing around? The feeling of the paper between his fingers, the weight of it in his hands. What surfaces, colours, people, and places did he capture? Maybe the pages hold secrets and untold stories. I imagine Israels standing in a bustling marketplace, quickly sketching a figure before they disappear into the crowd. Or perhaps he was sitting in a quiet park, capturing the subtle nuances of light filtering through the trees. I think of all the sketchbooks by other artists and imagine them all piled in a room together, bumping into each other, like a party of visual ideas, forever feeding off one another.