Vase c. 1936

This drawing of a vase, made by John Tarantino sometime in the 20th century, is pretty straightforward, isn’t it? The red and gray of the vase are nicely done, but what gets me is how he’s handled the surface. It’s not just flat color; there are these subtle shifts in tone that give the whole thing a bit of life. Look at the base; it’s almost like he’s trying to capture the way light moves through glass. It's the kind of observation that comes from hours of looking, really looking, at something. You could say the drawing is a kind of conversation. There are echoes of Morandi in the reductive shapes, the focus on simple, everyday objects. But Tarantino's got his own thing going on, a kind of quiet intensity that speaks to the beauty of the ordinary. And isn’t that what art is all about, anyway?