Candlestick c. 1940

John Tarantino made this drawing of a candlestick, we don’t know when, but you can see him working through the subject, finding his way around the curves and contours of the object. The color is so cool, a kind of icy blue, and the shading gives the candlestick a real sense of depth and volume. Look at the base, and how the light seems to catch on the edges of each little bump. You can almost feel the smoothness of the glass, even though it’s just a drawing on paper. And the way the lines are drawn, so carefully and deliberately, gives the whole thing a kind of quiet, meditative feeling. It reminds me a little of some of Giorgio Morandi’s still lifes. Both artists seem to be interested in finding the beauty in simple, everyday objects. And both of them remind us that art is often about looking closely and paying attention to the world around us.