A Portrait of an Indian Lady. 1940

This is a pencil drawing, A Portrait of an Indian Lady, by Xu Beihong, who lived from 1895 to 1953. The beauty of a pencil drawing lies in its simplicity, its directness. It's like the artist is thinking right in front of you, the marks laid bare. Look at the subtle shading around her eyes, the way the light catches the fabric of her veil. It’s all about the texture, the grain of the paper, the soft smudging of the graphite. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the page, building up the form with delicate strokes. My eye is drawn to the way the veil falls, there's a play of light and shadow in the folds that feels so natural, so unforced. It’s a reminder that art isn’t about perfection, it's about capturing a feeling, a moment in time. There's something about it that reminds me of the drawings of Käthe Kollwitz, that same sense of empathy, of human connection. In the end, art is a conversation, isn't it?