From the Boardwalk 1936

Yasuo Kuniyoshi made this drawing, From the Boardwalk, with charcoal. I can picture him there, maybe in Coney Island or some other beach in the city, rapidly sketching the people around him. There’s something so fresh and immediate about charcoal. You can get these velvety darks and smudgy grays, like fleeting memories. Look at how he renders the figure in the foreground, really grounded, solid, and in the background, the body almost dissolves into the atmosphere. Was she about to disappear? It makes me think about how we all carry these ghosts of past experiences with us, and how artists like Kuniyoshi can capture that feeling of being present and absent all at once. It connects with the work of other artists who explored the transience of human experience, like the Impressionists, or even some of the Symbolists. We are all constantly in conversation with each other.