Untitled

Untitled

Giacomo Balla

1909

graphite

From the collection of Museum of Modern Art

About this work

This sketch is all loose, wavy lines tangled together. The pencil marks overlap in a messy grid, some dark and some faint, like scribbles left behind after a quick thought. The paper is light beige, and the lines never settle—just swirls and crisscrosses filling the whole sheet. The artist used tiny, repeated strokes to build up the shapes, making some areas look almost solid. It’s like the lines are moving even though the paper isn’t. Next, check out cross-hatching to see how artists use layers of lines like this.

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