Flask (Pitkin Type) c. 1936

Charles Caseau’s *Flask (Pitkin Type)* is rendered with watercolor and graphite, and right away, I’m thinking about all those transparent layers, that olive-green glaze, those thin striations, like a memory of spiral gestures, spiraling round and round to make a glass bottle. I can imagine Caseau’s hand moving over the paper, carefully capturing the play of light on the glass surface, the way it bends and refracts. Did he hold the bottle in his hands, turning it slowly to really get a feel for its form? I wonder about the shadow too: that dark heavy base seems to ground this thing, and for a fleeting moment, reminds me of Morandi’s bottles. It's interesting how artists look to the past for inspiration, like the way Caseau references a particular type of flask in his title. There's an ongoing dialogue between artists, each building on the ideas of those who came before, in an exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity.