Gramophone c. 1937

Charles Bowman made this ‘Gramophone’ sometime after 1855, with paint on what looks like paper. The rendering is somewhere between a technical drawing and a trompe l'oeil painting. I like the way the lines wobble and the rendering of the objects is wonky and slightly out of kilter. The painting is mostly browns, blacks, and greys. The surface has been worked with short deliberate strokes, building up the image in layers. The wooden base of the gramophone is particularly well done: see how the light glances across its surface! Look at the way the artist has handled the horn of the gramophone. It's painted in gradations of black, with just a couple of bands of golden color. The artist is trying to describe its shiny surface with paint, but it ends up looking kind of matte and dry. This is not unlike some of the work of contemporary artists like Tomma Abts who create similarly ambiguous and slightly off-kilter images. Art making is a process of perpetual conversation between artists across time. There is something intriguing and unsettling about this piece, and perhaps this ambiguity is what makes it interesting.