Men and Machines 1941

Henry Billings made this drawing called ‘Men and Machines’ at some point in the mid twentieth century. Look closely and you can see it’s made with pencil, and what I love about pencil is how immediate it is. It’s a great medium to explore the relationship between light and shadow, or the relationship between the hand, the object and the artist. The rendering of the hands and machines is hyper-realistic. I mean, you can almost feel the cool, smooth metal and the precise, calibrated movements they facilitate. The contrast makes the image pop, and it reminds me of the kind of precision you see in technical drawings, but with this extra, human element. Check out the way Billings renders the hands. He’s not trying to idealize them, instead, he’s showing the hands as tools, as part of the whole mechanical process. To me, it’s like he’s saying that artmaking and craftsmanship are not that different. Maybe this piece reminds me a little of Joseph Stella, both artists trying to reconcile the relationship between people and industry.