The Court Rules 1927

Dwight Case Sturges made this drawing called ‘The Court Rules,’ with pen or pencil, and who knows what else, really. I imagine Sturges, bent over the page, squinting, coaxing the image from the ether. He’s feeling his way through a web of lines, some bold and dark, slicing diagonally, others so fine they're almost whispers. The way he's layered those marks, so thick in places, it's like he's building up not just an image, but also a mood, a feeling of intense concentration and perhaps even a little claustrophobia. I sympathize with Sturges here, caught in the act of creation. You can see him wrestling with the composition, trying to capture something elusive. Those slashing lines, they could be about authority, or maybe just a way of breaking up the space, adding energy. It reminds me that artists are always in conversation, borrowing, stealing, transforming. Sturges's marks resonate with the work of other artists who are trying to distill the world into a new visual form. It’s all just one big, messy, beautiful conversation, isn’t it?