Glass Sugar Bowl 1935 - 1942

This is Michael Miceli’s drawing of a glass sugar bowl. Look at the way Miceli delicately renders this everyday object with such care, such precision. What was he thinking as he built up the bowl line by line, curve by curve? I bet he spent hours observing its form, maybe turning it this way and that, trying to capture the nuances of its transparency, the way light refracts through the glass. There's a quiet intensity to it, as if he's trying to extract something more from the object, something beyond its mere function. I'm struck by the way the artist focuses on the contours. The way the object seems like it is illuminated from within. Perhaps the artist was experimenting with colour theory, trying to evoke certain qualities of light and shadow through colour. To me, it resonates with the still-life paintings of Morandi or even Cézanne – artists who found profound beauty in the simplest of forms.