Jug c. 1937

Editor: So, this is Frank Fumagalli's "Jug," made around 1937, a drawing in watercolor and line. It feels a bit like a study, almost hesitant, with that sketched jug on the side. What resonates with you in this work? Curator: I'm immediately struck by the layering of symbols. The jug itself, especially in the context of the 1930s, speaks of hearth and home, a certain self-sufficiency, but it’s also echoed in the stylized floral arrangement. Consider the colors, that muted palette; do you feel a tension between the traditional still life and a kind of modernist fragmentation? Editor: I do see that. The almost crude, heavy outlines clash with the delicate medium of watercolor, and the additional sketch is sort of disruptive. Is it meant to symbolize...something more? Curator: Perhaps the fractured identity of the era, a kind of looking back even as things fall apart. The jug, the vessel, contains, yes, but it’s also incomplete here, only a suggestion of wholeness, much like our memory of an idealised past that may never have fully existed. Consider its proximity to that full blue foliage -- does the jug look "empty" when it has this abundant life form to share its space with? Editor: So, the piece might be less about a simple jug, and more about the emotional landscape of the time, the sense of longing for an uncomplicated past during turbulent years. Curator: Precisely. Fumagalli utilizes simple objects imbued with complex associations, archetypes almost. How do those associations translate, resonate even, across generations, I wonder? Editor: That’s fascinating! It makes me see this simple drawing as much more emotionally charged, carrying the weight of its era in such subtle lines and colors. Curator: Yes, objects often become loaded with meanings we didn't expect. An aesthetic act then is an attempt to manage and interrogate those projected images, in its own space and time.