Second Book: Methymnaean Carrying Chloe Away (Chloe enlevee par le Methymnien) Possibly 1937

Aristide Maillol made this illustration, Second Book: Methymnaean Carrying Chloe Away, with a kind of ancient, reddish ink, or maybe it's just a print. What grabs me is how Maillol uses a single, consistent line to define the figures. It's like he's trying to capture the essence of form with the fewest possible marks. Look at Chloe's leg, how the single line curves and swells. It's confident but also vulnerable. You can almost feel the pressure of the tool on the paper. This simplicity of line reminds me of Matisse's later drawings. Both artists share a love for the human form and a knack for reducing it to its most essential elements. It reminds us that artmaking is a process of choices, of deciding what to include and, more importantly, what to leave out. It's never about perfect representation; it's about finding a visual language to express something deeper, something felt. It's up to us what we feel, of course.