Portrait of John Drinkwater 1917

Curator: This is Sir William Rothenstein’s "Portrait of John Drinkwater," a pencil drawing completed in 1917, and currently residing at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. What catches your eye first? Editor: He looks intense. There’s a tightness around the mouth and eyes, a sense of contained energy. Almost like a coiled spring ready to be released through verse or a sharp debate, perhaps. Curator: Interesting, especially considering the context. This drawing was produced during the First World War, a time of immense social and political upheaval. The choice of pencil as the medium is significant, speaking to both the practicality and availability of materials during wartime and the direct, unadorned style prevalent in depictions of this era. Editor: I imagine Rothenstein sitting down quickly to sketch Drinkwater while bombs fell outside! No, seriously, you’re right. Pencil is immediate, a grab-and-go medium perfect for capturing a moment. And there's a quiet strength here, something that reminds me of Wilfred Owen’s war poetry - powerful emotions rendered with surprising economy. It is more academic than something expressionistic. Curator: Exactly. There's also the labor involved, of course. Each line is deliberately placed, building up to create volume and shadow. Notice how Rothenstein uses hatching and cross-hatching to define Drinkwater’s features, revealing a mastery of the technique, highlighting craft tradition. Editor: True. It's that attention to detail within the constraints of the medium. See, the way the light hits the hair? Lovely. Makes you wonder what their conversation might have been. Curator: Indeed. Examining such portraiture, and its subtle blend of artistic representation and raw material reality, we gain fresh appreciation of how those wartime narratives were actually fashioned, conceived, and preserved. Editor: Yes. Sometimes I wish artworks could whisper their secrets to us - of late night sittings and shared anxieties of living, perhaps. Makes you want to know the backstory to what exactly they thought when posing, what a time it must have been... Curator: Ultimately, I suppose that our contemporary lens is inevitably coloring it to some degree now as we look through it, even now. Thanks for sharing. Editor: My pleasure! Every piece invites you in on its story. This just leaves more unanswered questions which only deepens the engagement, I suspect.