Studies for Sculpture 1941

Alexander Calder made this drawing, 'Studies for Sculpture', with ink, presumably as preparations for his mobiles and stabiles. It's all about the line, isn't it? How it can suggest form, movement, weight. Look at the hatching, that controlled frenzy of lines filling the shapes, giving them density. The ink is darker at the bottom, like the heaviness of gravity pulling the shapes down. You can almost see him dragging the pen across the paper, that physical act of mark-making. It’s strange, in the middle there is a large form but there is also a small figure raising its arms. The child is flying a kite. Is this some kind of commentary on the state of the world, the place of innocence under the shadow of the large dominating shape. Like Miro, Calder embraces this kind of ambiguity; his works hover between abstraction and figuration.