Inkwell 1935 - 1942

Charles Garjian made this drawing of an inkwell, probably sometime in the 20th century, with graphite and watercolor. It's a very unassuming, simple kind of artwork and you have to ask yourself why you would even bother to make a picture like this, I guess, when you could just take a photo. But look how delicately the watercolor is laid in, in thin washes, on the surface. It's more like a stain than a deposit of stuff. And notice too the way that each bit of detail in the carving has been carefully and individually wrought. It’s like Garjian is meditating, not only on the form of the inkwell, but on his own relationship to it as a user of inks. I wonder what kind of relationship Garjian may have had with an artist like Giorgio Morandi, who was similarly drawn to depicting simple, everyday objects. And, like with Morandi, perhaps it's more about how the artist sees, and how the artist uses the act of drawing to explore the world around him.