Jug c. 1936

Curator: Charles Caseau created this work titled "Jug" around 1936, rendering the piece in blue ink drawing on what appears to be paper. It's interesting to view the two representations. Editor: It strikes me immediately as a blueprint or a very deliberate study in form, despite the inherent utility of its subject—the jug itself. There is precision in the geometric simplicity of the curves. Curator: These vessels were quite ordinary at the time. Understanding them today requires considering the era, the culture, the availability of clean drinking water in different communities, and who had access to what kind of ceramic or pottery. Even its presentation; there is a company name labeled, suggesting more than aesthetic intent. Editor: Yes, but the clear, even strokes describing these two forms lend them a strange abstraction, no? The eye moves from the handle to the curves and, if only for a second, the utility melts away, replaced by pure line and form. Look at the variations between the shapes in the botanical ornaments, and even the carefully composed text; consider their relations as simply parts in an intricate pattern. Curator: What is particularly powerful here, for me, is that the botanical forms and even the cursive font choice signal how marketing during the Depression catered towards communities’ values of nostalgia and returning to roots and domesticity, playing a role in both class aspiration and racial politics that defined many communities. Editor: That's certainly interesting, and important! However, I see these elements less as representational of the values of the era, and more as fundamental components in the work's visual harmony. The careful placement of each line and the symmetry of the text, not as signifiers, but integral parts of the artwork itself. Curator: We can definitely analyze art at multiple levels of consideration simultaneously; how these different planes relate or conflict is something worthy of extended dialogue. Editor: Indeed! Thinking about visual balance versus historicization truly enrich our observation here.