A Tramp on Christmas Day 1946

This is Grandma Moses’ *A Tramp on Christmas Day*. I love how Moses dove into artmaking late in life, seeing it as a way to preserve memories of rural life. It's like she discovered a hidden room in her mind and decided to paint everything inside it. The surface here is like a soft, worn quilt. The colours, simple and direct, evoke a sense of nostalgia. There’s this great dog lying on a rug on the lower left. You can see how each brushstroke is laid bare, with no attempt to blend or hide. The paint is applied flat, almost like a child’s drawing, yet there’s a sophistication in the arrangement. The whole composition feels like it’s built from simple shapes fitting together to create something rich and complex. Looking at this, I am reminded of Henri Rousseau, another self-taught artist who transformed the ordinary into something magical.