Study for "Chinese Information Travel"—Equestrian 1980

Larry Rivers made this drawing, Study for "Chinese Information Travel"—Equestrian, on paper, and you can tell that his process is one of trying to get something down quickly, trying to get it right, but not too right. The pencil work is sketchy, all about gesture and movement. There's a real lightness to the drawing, a sense of spontaneity. The lines are thin, almost tentative, and there’s a lot of exposed paper, which gives the image room to breathe. Look at how the shading on the horse's body is done with these quick, scribbled lines. It's not about perfect realism; it's about capturing the essence of the form. The ground the horse stands on is rendered with a few simple lines that suggest a rocky surface, almost like a stage set. Rivers reminds me a bit of Manet, both interested in the relationship between flatness and depth, and how that tension can create a really dynamic image. Rivers is showing us that art is a journey, not a destination, and that sometimes the most interesting things happen along the way.