Drawing 1921

This drawing was made by Theo van Doesburg at some unknown time, and, well, it's just lines. I love the way this drawing isn’t trying to be anything other than what it is: a record of marks. The lines, they’re not trying to trick you, they lay bare the hand that made them. There’s a rigor to the geometry, but if you look closer, you can see the imperfections and wobbles of the hand, like, look at the way the solid black shapes are slightly irregular. This tiny imperfection gives it so much warmth, it speaks to the artist’s labor, his presence. This piece really reminds me of the drawings of Hilma af Klint, another artist who was interested in abstraction and the spiritual possibilities of pure form. It’s like they’re both tapping into some hidden architecture of the universe, building their own visual languages to express something beyond words. It’s exciting, no?