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

Gerardo Dottori made this drawing of a landscape – or rather, a skyscape – with coloured pencils. The marks are so energetic, almost feverish. You can really feel the urgency of his hand moving across the page, trying to capture the sensation of flight. There’s something so beautiful about the simple directness of coloured pencil. Look how he uses it to create a sense of depth and movement, especially in the way the fields seem to ripple and flow around the village. The colours, although bright, are all quite similar in tone, which gives a kind of flattened, dreamlike quality to the image. It reminds me of those early Futurist manifestos, full of speed, dynamism, and a slightly unhinged optimism. Dottori's aerial landscapes always makes me think of Hilma af Klint, another artist who was trying to map unseen worlds. Both were using art to explore new dimensions, pushing the boundaries of what painting could be. They remind us that art is never really finished, it’s always in process, always searching.