Soriano nel Cimino 1924

Hermann Lismann made this landscape of Soriano nel Cimino with ink wash and graphite. I'm looking at the shapes that form the architecture of the buildings and the fort that overlooks the small Italian town. The structures are made of layered rectilinear blocks of different sizes and depths. The artist, Lismann, seemed to work reductively, almost like he was chiseling away at a block of stone. I think the artist saw the world as made of solid forms. He approached image-making by carefully delineating each object. He understood that the world could be divided into light and dark, and it looks like he had a lot of fun doing that in this work. I can see him in my mind's eye, shifting from one shade of grey to another. All artists borrow from each other, and Hermann Lismann is part of that conversation, offering his unique perspective on the world.