Scales 1936

This is Broda’s “Scales”, made at an unknown date with graphite and watercolour. Looking at it, you can really tell it was done by an artist with such a big date range! The colours are very limited: browns, grays, and blues. Broda’s scales appear in the center. You can see the weight hanging at the bottom, and the way he’s rendered the light on this object is so precise, it almost resembles hammered bronze. Broda’s linework here is just amazing. The lines are delicate, and it gives the object a light and airy feeling despite it being, well, metal. It makes me think of some of the architectural drawings made by Charles Sheeler, but Broda’s has a softness that Sheeler doesn’t. It’s like he’s not just depicting a set of scales, but imagining the potential in them. The possibility of balance.