Melon Shaped Jar 1935 - 1942

This is a drawing of a melon shaped jar, circa 1825, made by an anonymous artist. The jar is painted in shades of brown, with a green plane beneath it. It's a very simple set up, but it’s also kind of great, right? The surface texture is really interesting. The artist has built up the form with lots of tiny, almost imperceptible marks. Look closely at the jar’s belly and you can see a web of tiny strokes, a kind of cross-hatching, that gives the surface a slight roughness, a visual hum. It's like the artist is slowly coaxing the form into being, bit by bit. This reminds me of the work of Giorgio Morandi who also used simple compositions and subtle tonal variations to convey a sense of quiet contemplation, but with a slightly different mood. Both artists show us how much can be achieved with a limited palette and a focus on the essential forms of things. In art, like in life, it's often the simplest things that are the most profound.