Eagle 1935 - 1942

Elisabeth Fulda made this drawing of an eagle with what looks like watercolor on paper. You know, it’s interesting how the most unassuming materials can sometimes yield the most compelling images. The eagle here is rendered in shades of blue-grey and white, and what really grabs me is the quality of the line and the textures created with it. There’s a real tension between precision and looseness, which brings a vitality to the image. Look at the way Fulda articulates the feathers on the eagle's wings. Each is carefully delineated with fine strokes of the brush, yet there’s also a kind of freedom, like she’s letting the brush dance across the surface. It’s these contrasts, this play between control and chance, that makes the drawing so engaging. It makes me think of Alfred Kubin’s fantastical drawings, that also combined precise line work with a kind of dreamlike ambiguity. In the end, art is like a conversation, each artist borrowing and building on what came before, and Fulda's eagle is definitely part of that conversation.