What the heck is happening here?
While some drawings aspire to clarity, others are enhanced by obscurity and mystery.
Carl Sandburg said, “Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what was seen during a moment.”
I enjoy the work of Hans Hillmann who was famous for his posters but who also created a number of shadowy noir illustrations for stories such as Dashiell Hammett’s 1929 Flypaper. Note how each of these illustrations is staged to leave viewers “to guess about what was seen.”
In the drawings above, Hillmann has cropped out most of the elements that would normally be at the center of an illustration or concealed them with fog or shadow. But it’s important to note that Hillmann’s approach doesn’t rely solely on the omission of details. He created many detailed, high resolution drawings with elements ranging from faux wrinkles in clothing to complex patterns on socks. This glut of details doesn’t make the drawings any more comprehensible.
Many illustrators are celebrated for their ability to create highly realistic pictures– a skill which is increasingly less impressive as more and more of the work can be accomplished with inexpensive digital aids. But there is much to be said for artists like Hillmann who can cast a spell using an oblique approach.