Soldiers with Cannon c. 1916 - 1918

This pencil drawing of soldiers with a cannon was made by Maximilien Luce, and now lives at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It’s all about the hand here. The directness of the line. You can imagine Luce standing there, quickly trying to get it all down, like a reporter sketching on the spot. He’s working out all the elements: the soldiers, the cannon, a horse—or what I think is a horse. These marks feel like a way of seeing, a type of thinking. It is as if the image is evolving through a process of trial and error. I wonder what Luce was thinking as he drew? Was he interested in the formal qualities of the figures or the underlying tension of the scene? Or was he simply trying to capture a moment in time? Whatever the intention, there is a raw, unvarnished quality to this sketch. And in the end, that’s what makes it so appealing. Artists have always been in dialogue with one another, each inspiring new ways of seeing, thinking, and working. This little sketch is proof of that.