Stove c. 1937

Einar Heiberg made this drawing of a stove, with what seems like pencil and watercolor. I love the careful observation here, a kind of loving, and almost obsessive focus on the everyday. Look at the blueish, grey paint that makes up the stove, how it seems to be both flat and dimensional, all at once. Heiberg is so interested in the stove-ness of this stove, that he meticulously renders it, but also sort of abstracts it, flattening the image in places and then adding detail in others. My eye keeps going to the little golden circles on each edge. They're like little suns, repeated over and over. They give warmth to the image, popping against all that grey. This makes me think of Giorgio Morandi, who also painted everyday objects and through repetition, rendered them monumental. Ultimately, art is about noticing the world around you, and about opening yourself up to the endless possibilities of what you see.