The Year's at the Spring 1920

Harry Clarke made this drawing, The Year's at the Spring, with ink, at no determinable date. The marks here are so deliberate, like building blocks, so neat and contained, that I find myself wondering if he even had the freedom to just let loose. The sharp contrast between black and white creates a mystical atmosphere, enhancing the fantastical nature of the figure suspended in mid-air. The figure’s suit is formed by hundreds of tiny black dots, and these patterns look like they could be plucked right off the page. Look at the lines that surround him, like shards of ice, which remind me of the kind of drawings you find in books of fairytales. Clarke’s work reminds me of Aubrey Beardsley. There's the same commitment to a very particular kind of detail, but Clarke takes this further into a world of dreams and symbolism. Art is so often about the conversations that artists have with each other, across time and space.