Seated Female (related to the painting Sister of Charity) c. 1902

Paul Gauguin made this lithograph, Seated Female, which relates to the painting Sister of Charity, out of lithographic crayon and transferred it onto paper. The texture has that granular, almost sandy quality that comes when the material of the drawing—in this case, the litho crayon—is a bit rough, a bit crumbly. It’s interesting to consider how much texture is possible in a drawing, and how that affects the way we see the image. Looking at the lower left, you can see a build up of these marks, massed together to create areas of tone and shadow, and the weave of the fabric. It is not a highly polished surface, nor particularly precise drawing, yet somehow the accumulation of marks, the graininess of the crayon, adds a feeling of solidity and presence to the figure. The image, somehow, is both fleeting and very solid at the same time. It makes me think of Odilon Redon and his early drawings, which are similarly rooted in material and surface. Ultimately, art invites us to embrace ambiguity and multiple interpretations, rather than seeking fixed meanings.