Bottle c. 1938

Ralph Atkinson made this drawing of a bottle sometime in the 20th century using watercolor and graphite, probably on paper. I like the way he's combined the colors, all warm and earthy, it feels like a natural process, like he's letting the medium do its thing, letting it bleed and blend. Looking at the Poland Water label, it's rendered so carefully, but then there's this looseness everywhere else. It's like he's saying, "Here's the object," but also, "Here's the feeling of the object." The way he's built up the layers, you can almost feel the texture of the glass, but then the rest of it is kind of hazy. It reminds me of some of Giorgio Morandi’s still life paintings, where he would paint the same bottles and jars over and over, each time trying to capture something different about them. It's like art is just a way of looking, a way of feeling, and a way of letting things be what they are, without trying to pin them down too much.