Flip Glass c. 1938

John Dana made this drawing of a glass sometime in the 20th Century. Look at his gentle mark-making with graphite on paper, carefully rendered to suggest the play of light on the glass surface. You can almost feel the coolness of the glass. Dana really gets into the material of this glass; the way the light refracts through the fluid it contains, and the soft textures that almost aren't there. I'm thinking of the small etched floral pattern, a delicate counterpoint to the way the light passes through the molded flutes around the body of the glass. Notice how those vertical shapes stretch and distort whatever might be seen through them. It is a bit like looking through the paintings of Gerhard Richter, which use similar techniques of smearing and distortion to explore perception. Here, seeing is not just believing; it's questioning, playing, and maybe even having a little fun. Art isn't always about answers, sometimes it is about the joy of looking.