Drawing No. 10

Hércules Barsotti

1959

A spare ink-on-paper drawing that reduces a picture to a single vertical axis interrupted by two short parallel strokes, a study in balance and rhythm through extreme simplification.

A square of pale, skin-toned ground is quietly punctured at its center by a hairline black column running edge to edge, while two short, closely set bars near the middle create a tiny, tense offset that makes the whole work feel poised and deliberate.

Produced amid Brazil’s midcentury concrete-abstract movement, the sheet distills modernist concerns about order, perception, and economy of form and helped point the way toward later minimalist and conceptual approaches.

Palette

Art Terms

Arte concreto(BrazilianConcrete art) Abstraction Geometric abstraction Drawing Ink Figure/ground relationship Modern art

Exhibitions

Cubism and Abstract Art

1936

The Nude: Thirty 20th-Century Drawings

1970

Thirty Sculptors' Drawings

1979

Fifty Drawings: Recent Acquisitions

1962