Geryon 1960

Ossip Zadkine made this print, Geryon, using crayon, and you can see how the medium is part of the message. It is all about the layering and the kind of rough, almost violent way that the marks are put down. I think about the physicality of the materials and how they meet the paper. The color is really interesting – these muted, earthy tones with pops of blue and green. Look at the way Zadkine renders the figure, this composite creature of man and beast. It is all about these broken, jagged lines that build up into this form. Like, what does it mean to make a body out of these marks, this aggregation of color? There's a conversation with Picasso here, maybe. Zadkine takes the cubist idea of breaking down forms and recombining them, but adds this layer of emotional rawness. Art isn't just about what you see, it is also about how you feel, right?