Bull's Eye Lamp 1936

This is Charles Charon's "Bull's Eye Lamp," made with graphite on paper. Look at how Charon coaxes form out of simple shades of grey. You can almost feel the grain of the paper underneath. I'm really feeling for Charon in this piece. When I look at this graphite drawing, I imagine him, maybe in 1936, squinting his eyes to really grasp the light and the shadows. How do you translate three dimensions onto a flat surface? How can you make something look solid with just a pencil? Look at how he captures the light in the glass part – that must have taken real patience. There's a quietness and a dedication in the way the artwork is rendered – in the cross-hatching, in the subtle gradients. Artists are always talking to one another, across time, across space. And Charon is here, inviting us to really see. The lamp is nothing special, but the way he sees it, that’s worth something.