Candlestick 1935 - 1942

Giacinto Capelli made this drawing of a candlestick, with pencil and watercolor, sometime in the 20th century. Just look at the build-up of the form. You know, it's quite something, isn't it? I can almost see Capelli now, gently layering the blues and greens, letting them bleed into each other to capture the translucence of the glass. The way the base swells, then narrows into those stacked spheres... I wonder if Capelli was thinking about light, how it bends and refracts through the curves? Maybe he just liked the way the shapes sat together, one on top of the other. I see a real elegance here, a quiet observation. You could put this next to a Morandi any day. It is like they are in conversation with each other. Capelli shows us that drawing is as much about seeing as it is about rendering.