Twee vrouwen bij een ezelkar c. 1886 - 1934

Curator: What we're looking at is Isaac Israels' "Two Women with a Donkey Cart," likely from the late 19th or early 20th century. It’s a pencil and ink drawing on paper, currently held at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: It feels like a fleeting snapshot, a quickly captured moment. I am drawn to how Israels used very few lines, seemingly effortless, yet he defines the figures, the donkey and the cart, very convincingly. How do you read this piece? Curator: The beauty lies in its rawness, doesn't it? Think about the labor involved. The hand of the artist moving rapidly across the page, driven by what? By the necessity to document a scene, to understand the working class and the everyday life around him. Editor: It’s interesting to think of it as work itself, the drawing. So, you see the rapid marks less as capturing light, which is what I usually associate with impressionism, and more as documentation of labor. Curator: Precisely. Where did Israels encounter this scene? The streets? The fields? What are the women transporting, what goods are they circulating through society? Are these materials for someone else’s profit? Look at how the sketch blurs the line between art and mere record keeping, and whose lives he’s recording. It speaks volumes about the social context he was operating in. The drawing itself is a product, evidence of artistic labor, and an artifact documenting other forms of labor. Editor: That gives me a different way to consider what "impressionism" can be. Thank you. I usually think of impressionism as more of an aesthetic pursuit than a critical investigation of work and production. Curator: The lines invite us to consider the unseen efforts, the means by which we create and circulate meaning. Editor: Definitely. Next time I will remember to not take those quick impressionist works just for what is shown. Thank you.