Goblet c. 1939

Edward White made this drawing of a goblet, and the lack of colour really sets the stage, doesn’t it? It's as if he's saying, let's strip things down, focus on form, line, and the sheer act of seeing. There's a delicacy to the piece, a real tenderness in the way he coaxes the goblet into existence with these almost hesitant lines. Look how the light seems to pass right through it. It’s like he's trying to capture not just the object, but the very idea of a goblet. The surface has this incredible tension between the softness of the graphite and the almost aggressive clarity of the glass itself. White’s drawing reminds me a bit of Agnes Martin, who also understood the power of the understated, of making a whole world out of just a few lines. What Edward White is showing us is that sometimes, less really is more, and that there's a whole universe waiting to be discovered in the simplest of things.