Studie 1923

This little sketch by Alexander Shilling looks like it was made with a very delicate pen or fine brush. It’s more like a whisper on paper. I imagine Shilling making this, maybe outside on a windy day, trying to capture something fleeting like a bird taking flight, or a memory fading at the edges. The mark-making is so tentative. You can almost feel the artist searching for the right line, the right weight. It reminds me of Cy Twombly's drawings, or even some of Agnes Martin's more delicate works. It's not about perfection. It's about the process of looking, feeling, and trying to capture something real on the page. And in that way, it becomes something new, something of its own. It speaks to me about how painting is always about conversation, across time and between artists. How someone else's searching can ignite our own.