Five Composition Studies c. 1940s

Ralston Crawford made these "Five Composition Studies" with ink on paper. What strikes me is the immediate sense of searching, the visible process. Each study is like a little arena of thought. Look at the bottom left one; it’s got this crazy energy, like a rollercoaster about to jump off its tracks. You can almost feel Crawford working through ideas, the lines overlapping and pushing against each other. The ink isn't precious, it’s there to get the job done, to map out a kind of thinking. I find it fascinating how Crawford uses these simple lines to create such complex spaces. It reminds me of some of Kandinsky's early experiments, that same urge to find structure in chaos, to see the world not as it is, but as it could be. And isn't that what art is all about anyway?