Flask 1935 - 1942

Janet Riza made this Flask with watercolors and graphite. Look at how she’s built up this green with these little hatching marks. It gives it a kind of shimmer. It's like watching the light bounce off a real glass flask, a process of layering to find the form. It's not just the color but also the texture she coaxes out of the watercolor. See how the green pools and thickens along the flask’s contours, and then thins out to transparency in the middle. This thinness gives it a luminous quality. The graphite under-drawing peeks through in places, adding another layer to the depth. I like the little drawing up in the corner too, it reminds me of the way Morandi would return to painting the same bottles again and again. It all feels like a conversation about seeing, about light, and about the quiet beauty of ordinary things.