Half-Length Seated Male 19th-20th century

Curator: Here we see "Half-Length Seated Male" by Denman Waldo Ross, part of the Harvard Art Museums collection, rendered with graphite on paper. Editor: The way the artist captures the sitter within this grid creates an impression of vulnerability, like being caught, observed, almost pinned down. Curator: Indeed, the visible construction lines emphasize the process. Ross seems interested in exposing the mechanics of representation itself, moving beyond just capturing a likeness. Editor: It also gives it an unfinished quality, as if the image is still taking shape before our eyes. Which, in a way, it is; the process of perception is never really complete, is it? Curator: Perhaps the lack of finish speaks to the changing role of drawing in the early 20th century, as less preparatory and more an exploratory medium in its own right. Editor: It makes me wonder, who was this man, and what story did he carry within that frame, literally and figuratively? Curator: Ultimately, it invites us to appreciate the labor involved in artmaking, and the constructed nature of the image. Editor: And maybe to see the beauty in the imperfect, the process, the vulnerability of being observed, both as the model and the viewer.