Italian Fishing Boats 1924

Vaclav Vytlacil made this drawing, Italian Fishing Boats, with graphite on paper. I can see the whole thing coming into being as the artist probably shifted and adjusted, using intuition, and accepting trial and error. What might Vytlacil have been thinking as he was making this? I can imagine the artist looking, searching, and responding to the scene. It is like he has translated the three-dimensional world into a tonal arrangement of line, mass and form. I love the light reflecting off the water, the way he has built that up with small hatched strokes. The sail is simplified into an architectural shape, a flat plane of white contained by stark dark lines. It reminds me that all artists are in an ongoing conversation, exchanging ideas across time and space. It is exciting to remember that painting is an embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.