Lament/Nomads 1940

Abidin Dino made this drawing, Lament/Nomads, with confident sweeps of black ink. I can just imagine him standing over the paper, letting the gesture emerge from his arm. The figure is caught mid-wail, arms thrown up, mouth open in anguish. It reminds me of Picasso's Guernica, that raw outcry against suffering. You can almost feel Dino’s urgency as he lays down these stark, heavy lines. There's something so direct and unadorned about the way he’s captured this moment of grief. It is like he's saying, "Here, look at this pain, look at it honestly." It is an economy of means that makes it so powerful, you know? All that emotion distilled into a few black lines. It echoes across time. That is what painting is, right? One long, ongoing conversation.