Lamp c. 1938

Isidore Steinberg made this drawing of a lamp sometime during his long life with graphite on paper. It looks simple, right? Like a straightforward rendering, but hold on a minute… What interests me here is the transparency Steinberg tries to achieve with graphite. The way the subtle gradations of grey let the light through, just like the glass itself. See how he models the curves with gentle strokes, building up darker tones to define the edges? It’s like he's chasing the ghost of the lamp, trying to pin down something that's inherently elusive. Look closely at the base; the circular foot is rendered so carefully that you can almost feel the weight of the object. The glass isn’t perfectly clear, it’s got a kind of cloudy, aged quality. It makes me think about Giorgio Morandi, who spent his life painting the same bottles over and over. Steinberg, like Morandi, seems to be searching for something beyond the mere appearance of things. It's about seeing, really seeing, and that's an ongoing process.