Gun Carriages, France 1918

John Singer Sargent made this sketch, Gun Carriages, France, probably in graphite, capturing these war machines with such an economy of means. It’s all about the process, you can see the movement of the hand, that searching quality as the artist finds the image on the page. The drawing is very light and open, not a lot of dark tones or heavy shading. The lines are delicate, almost tentative, as if Sargent is feeling his way around these hulking mechanical forms. It’s interesting how he captures the details, like the spokes of the wheels, with just a few quick strokes, suggesting rather than defining. Look how the lines seem to overlap and intersect, creating a sense of depth and dimension, it gives a feeling of movement, as if the vehicles are in motion, lumbering across the landscape. Sargent's contemporary, the sculptor Constantin Brancusi, also worked with a similar reductive approach. Both artists knew how to suggest form with the least amount of information. It’s about embracing ambiguity and the endless possibilities of interpretation.