Tennessee Belle c. 1939

Thomas Hart Benton made this drawing, Tennessee Belle, with ink on paper, and you can see it's all about the power of the line. Look how the ink varies, thick in some places, thin in others, as if he changed his mind halfway through a stroke, or the pen was running out of ink. The hatching, those tiny parallel lines that build up value, gives the whole thing a graphic, almost woodcut feel, even though it's just ink. It's interesting to think about the materiality of the ink itself, how it sits on the page, soaking in, creating these little pools of darkness. See how he's used the ink wash to describe the smoke, a light, transparent layer over the paper that's been built up? There's a real sense of the hand in this piece, it's as if he's wrestling with the drawing, trying to pin it down. It reminds me a bit of Marsden Hartley's drawings, that same kind of directness and honesty. Ultimately, this feels open and unresolved, an ongoing conversation.