Volo su paese (o Studio per A 300 Km sulla città) 1930

Gerardo Dottori made this drawing, Volo su paese, or flight over the country, I imagine, with waxy crayons and a childlike sense of wonder. Look at the landscape, chopped into sharp geometric forms, it reminds me of a tumbling patchwork quilt of reds, whites, and greens. I can imagine Dottori, up in the sky, drawing the landscape from an airplane window. It's as though he's collaging the image into a mosaic of fractured shapes, capturing the world in flux, in motion. What would it be like to be in a plane for the first time, seeing the world through such a small frame, speeding through the sky? This colored pencil drawing seems to be a study for the artist’s series, A 300 Km sulla città, and Dottori was obsessed with the idea of flight, trying to show dynamism and velocity through a sort of abstracted realism. Like many artists, Dottori was experimenting with ways to capture the feeling of things, the sensation of flying. So much art is about that: a conversation with other artists, about how we experience the world, with the idea of progress, always moving, always inspired.