Lantern c. 1940

Here's a muted, soft rendering of a metal lantern, made by Rose Campbell-Gerke, at an unknown date. I can imagine her trying to capture the sheen of the object, the way the light would catch on the metal and glass. There’s a real attentiveness here; the light is subtle, barely there, like a whisper. Maybe she was thinking about the lantern's purpose, a tool for navigating darkness? What stories could it tell? Maybe she had one like it as a child? The surface is so smooth, almost like a memory. The texture is described gently, the details of the glass and metal just enough to suggest a tangible presence. It reminds me of Morandi, in the way that an everyday object becomes an entire world. You can see a lifetime of looking in that simple shape. It's all connected, you know? We're all just trying to figure things out, one brushstroke at a time.