Silver Snuff Box c. 1936

Clayton Braun made this drawing of a silver snuff box, and I imagine him carefully rendering each line to describe the form and the figures in graphite. Look at the surface of the paper – it’s got a bit of tooth, which creates a soft, almost velvety texture, especially in the shadowed areas. I wonder what Braun was thinking about when he made this. Was he interested in the story of the figures on the box, locked in an embrace? Or perhaps he was absorbed by the technical challenge of rendering the metallic sheen of silver with just a pencil. The way the light falls across the surface and how Braun has used hatching and cross-hatching to build up tone really makes me want to see the real object, you know? It reminds me of Ingres and his precision, that same commitment to line and form. All artists are students of the real world and translate it into a 2D representation. But Braun brings his own sensibility, his own way of seeing, to the task.