A Little Yearling, Ayrshire Bull, Rowe, Massachusetts 1918

John Marin created this watercolor of an Ayrshire Bull, somewhere around Rowe, Massachusetts. I can imagine him outside with his paper, squinting at the light, trying to capture the animal’s essence. The palette is muted—greens, pinks, creams—but it's the sketched lines underneath that I find interesting. They are ghostly, like the bull is emerging from the paper itself. Marin isn't trying to give us a photograph, but rather an impression. Look at those touches of red in the ears and the gentle pink of the nose. It's so economical! You can really feel the hand of the artist here, trying to get the volume right, adjusting the lines, letting the watercolor bleed into the paper, and capturing not just the bull but also the light and air around it. It’s about capturing the immediacy of the here and now, and it is a reminder that painting is a conversation, a way of thinking through feeling and form.