Seated Birdman Figure c. 1916 - 1918

Maximilien Luce made this drawing of a seated birdman figure, with ink and graphite, held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It is a flurry of gestural marks, mostly in brown ink, with some blue lines dancing around the figure's head, like thoughts or fleeting impressions. I can imagine Luce, hunched over his paper, letting his hand move instinctively. The ink bleeds slightly into the paper, giving it a hazy, dreamlike quality. There's a rawness, an immediacy, as if he's trying to capture something elusive, maybe an ancient spirit or a mythological being. Is that a sculpture in the background? The birdman itself is rendered with such quick, confident strokes that I can almost feel the scratch of the pen on paper. It reminds me of other artists who were drawn to the primal and the fantastical, like Redon, or maybe even Gorky. We artists are always looking back, riffing off each other, trying to channel something bigger than ourselves. Painting is just our way of trying to make sense of the world, one gesture at a time.