Siena. The square. 1912

This drawing of Siena’s town square was made by Pyotr Konchalovsky, probably on the spot, in 1912. The lines feel immediate, like he’s trying to capture the essence of the place with a kind of frenetic energy. I can imagine Konchalovsky standing there, charcoal in hand, squinting at the scene, trying to distill the complexity of the architecture and the hustle of city life into a few simple marks. Look at how the lines describing the buildings are shaky and uneven, yet they somehow capture the solidity and weight of the structures. The drawing feels like a record of a fleeting moment, a snapshot of a particular time and place, rather than a carefully constructed composition. There’s something really appealing about its directness and simplicity, which feels very modern, but in a way, it also connects to a long history of artists who've tried to capture the world around them, from Giotto to the Futurists.