Portret van een onbekende man 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels sketched this unknown man with graphite on paper. The drawing’s immediacy gives you a sense of Israels working quickly, capturing a fleeting moment, and I love that. The texture of the paper and the varying pressure of the graphite create a dynamic surface. Look at the confident, almost scribbled lines that define the man’s form, like around his left shoulder. There’s a real energy in the way Israels built up the shadows and volume with simple strokes. It feels honest, not overworked. The way the hand closest to us is drawn seems to show the artist working out how to draw a hand. Israels’s mentor was the Dutch artist George Breitner. Both were interested in depicting everyday life, and you can see something of that here in the informal pose and direct gaze of the sitter. It's just nice, a human moment captured in graphite.