Study for ‘Riverfront No. 1’ c. 1915

Curator: Wow, that pose! There's a raw physicality, almost like the body is recoiling, folding in on itself. It reminds me of the kind of stretching you see first thing in the morning. Editor: Indeed. This intriguing pencil drawing is actually a study for a larger piece by George Wesley Bellows. He created this study for “Riverfront No. 1” around 1915. Curator: Bellows, eh? I get that kind of urban grit, almost a boxing match ferocity in the line work here even though it’s a nude. The human figure really takes on a graphic life. A different kind of struggle somehow. What about those stark contrasts though? What could those reveal? Editor: Well, shadows themselves bear tremendous symbolic weight across art history. Think of Plato's cave – what we perceive isn't always the absolute truth. What's concealed can be as, or more, telling than what's illuminated. Those deep lines could even speak to a tension with progress... like, a lament that civilization perhaps obscures a primal part of ourselves? The nude alone bears connection to classical works. Curator: Interesting! So, it is not only like a study, in terms of preparation, but it’s as if Bellows wants to study what it is to be fundamentally human too. Maybe that vulnerability… that’s why it resonates. We are forced to face that reality. Editor: Perhaps. There's a universality in vulnerability. Also, notice the way the figure is cropped; it adds to a feeling of something unfinished or captured mid-action, right? Curator: Exactly. Like the viewer caught this human being by chance... I also love how minimal it is... that line economy, like each stroke needed to carry maximum weight. Like, what is seen and unseen both hold meaning. The gesture becomes this sign almost. Editor: It feels intentionally unfinished as if waiting for meaning to emerge. In his reductive lines and contrast in tone, Bellows asks for this gesture to be seen. It will carry different significance for each of us, won't it? Curator: Absolutely. And for me, in the drawing's openness, I find space for both contemplation, as well as wonder at how alive a single gesture might become, given the chance to come alive.