Kvindelig model, set fra ryggen 1908 - 1912

Editor: Here we have Aristide Maillol’s “Female Model, Seen From The Back,” a pencil drawing from around 1908 to 1912. It has such a tactile feel to it. Almost like I can feel the texture of the paper and the soft gradations of the pencil. It seems both classical and modern at the same time. What's your take? Curator: Exactly! It’s wonderfully Janus-faced. Maillol always struck me as a sculptor who drew – the forms, even in two dimensions, possess a remarkable weight and volume. The hatching suggests a yearning to feel around the form, to understand it in the round. Almost like touch replaces sight. Don’t you think? Editor: That's interesting, touch replacing sight... So he’s almost sculpting with the pencil? Curator: Precisely! See how he models the back, not with lines so much as with tone, creating a tangible sense of mass. He invites us to do the same; feel the tension and release in the model’s stance, her almost classical contrapposto softened and made altogether human. And tell me, what’s your favorite part of it? Editor: I am really drawn to the hair – or the suggestion of it. It's just a few swirls, almost abstract. They don't define detail, but suggest the model is also present, real, beyond a form study. Curator: Yes! He finds the extraordinary in the ordinary. I love that reading of the hair! It encapsulates Maillol's genius, that sense of intimate grandeur, wouldn’t you say? I am happy to have looked at the work together. Editor: Definitely. Thanks for making me see this in an entirely new way. I will leave this space thinking about what is seen but more importantly, unseen.