Bronzes
1890
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
1890
ink
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Bronzes is a 1890 ink by James Henry Moser, a Impressionism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This drawing shows a lion perched on a pedestal, its head tilted down like it’s sniffing something. Behind the lion, there’s a strange, half-circle shape with tiny people and buildings inside, like a tiny world folded into the scene. On the pedestal’s base, a snake curls around a broken column, its tail lifting up. The artist used sharp, crisscrossed lines to build up the shadows—this is called cross-hatching. It gives the drawing a textured, almost sculpted look, even though it’s just ink on paper. Next, check out cross-hatching to see how other artists used this technique.
