Liquor Flask 1935 - 1942

Charles Caseau made this drawing of a liquor flask, sometime in the 20th century, using ink on paper. It’s so simple, just a bottle with some decoration around it, but it makes me think about how we see and what we choose to see. The lines feel tentative, like he's feeling his way around the object. It's not about perfectly capturing reality, it's about the act of looking. I love the way the simple line drawing describes the volume of the bottle, the curve from top to base. There is a singular straight line running down the centre of the bottle, it divides the form in two, and introduces a certain tension or division. Art isn't about answers, it's about questions. Caseau shows us that even the most ordinary object can be a starting point for something extraordinary. This reminds me of Giorgio Morandi who made painting after painting of bottles. Maybe we're all just bottles, waiting to be filled with something.