Mother And Child 1932

Alexandre Jacovleff made this drawing of a mother and child with chalk, and what looks like charcoal, in 1932. I’m looking at the way the chalk builds up, and thinking about Jacovleff’s hand moving across the surface, back and forth, creating those tender gradations of tone, the shadows which delineate the mother's face. I think of the way the child is held against her mother, protected, as she stares out at the viewer, and then I imagine the artist staring back at them, trying to capture the moment. I think of the way he has rendered the straw hat, in these beautifully simple lines, and it reminds me of other artists like Gauguin or Van Gogh, and the way they were fascinated by what they considered to be 'primitive' cultures. But Jacovleff is doing something different, there is a kind of straightforward realism in his work. It’s interesting to consider the way artists are constantly looking at one another’s work, borrowing ideas and techniques, and building upon what has come before.