Louis, an Italian Fisherman, Glouscester c. 1920

Abraham F. Levinson made this drawing of Louis, an Italian fisherman, from Gloucester, on a sheet of paper. Look at the way Levinson puts down a continuous line to suggest an entire form. The fisherman’s hat is not just sitting on his head, it’s part of his head, almost like the head *is* the hat. There’s a freedom to the line, capturing the attitude of the sitter. I wonder, was Louis posing, or was he caught unawares? I think the line suggests the latter – the artist saw him, and quickly made a drawing of him. Levinson would have been part of a community of artists, looking at and talking about each other’s work. Artists make art in response to what they see – in life, in the world, and in art itself. Art is ambiguous and uncertain. We can never know what the ‘true’ meaning of a work is – and that’s the point! Artworks can have multiple readings, and shift over time.