Empire Wedding Dress 1935 - 1942

This drawing of an Empire Wedding Dress was made with pen and watercolor on paper, by an unknown artist. What strikes me about this piece is how restrained the palette is, almost monochrome. It gives the piece a ghostly, antique quality. You can almost smell the attic dust. The artist really seems to be exploring the possibilities of tonal variation within a very limited range. Look at how the artist uses tiny marks to create texture and form, almost like stippling. It’s this process of accumulation, building up the image dot by dot, that gives the dress its volume and presence. The whole thing feels like a delicate, almost obsessive act of devotion. It reminds me of Agnes Martin, in the way that she also used repetition and subtle variation to create these incredibly meditative, almost transcendental images. It’s like they're both saying something about the beauty and the power of simplicity.