Still Life 1932

This lithograph, Still Life, was made by Burgoyne Diller in 1932. Look at the way he's built up the forms with these tight, almost nervous marks. It's like he's trying to find the shapes through a process of searching. The texture is everything here. That constant back and forth of the pencil creates a kind of shimmering surface. Notice the tabletop, how it’s almost vibrating with energy. And then there's the contrast between the solid black areas and these delicate, gray tones. That little tree, it’s so fragile, almost like a metaphor for the act of creation itself. It reminds me a bit of Stuart Davis, someone else who was riffing off cubism and modernism, but with their own distinct voice. Ultimately, Diller’s not trying to give us a fixed image, but rather a sense of possibility, of things coming into being.