Human head 1943

This head, by Ossip Zadkine, is made from stone, and when you look at it, you're also seeing the results of a process. A slow, subtractive one. I'm struck by the texture. Look how the surface of the stone is worked! It's not smoothed or polished. There's a rawness to it, almost geological, like seeing the deep-time of the earth made visible in a face. The light catches all those tiny facets and angles. If you follow the line of the nose, it's not about classical realism. It's more about a simplification, an essence of form. Zadkine reminds me of some of the early modernists, like Brancusi, who were also interested in distilling the human form down to its most elemental shapes. But, unlike Brancusi's polished surfaces, Zadkine leaves the marks of his labor, which makes it feel more human somehow. The roughness and the smoothness coexist, like a conversation between the hand and the stone. A conversation that we are now a part of.