Decorative Panel from Rail Car Interior c. 1936

Wellington Blewett made this decorative panel for a rail car interior, and it looks like it’s done with watercolor or gouache on paper. There’s something so delicate about the way Blewett has rendered the woodgrain, like he’s trying to capture the fleeting quality of light on a surface. The red vine with its stylized leaves and berries feels almost like a secret code, a hidden message woven into the fabric of the train. The texture of the paper peeks through the thin washes of color, grounding the design in its material reality. I keep thinking about how that red vine must have snaked along the walls of the rail car. In some ways, it makes me think of Hilma af Klint, and how she used abstract forms to explore spiritual dimensions. There’s an ambiguity in Blewett’s panel, a sense of openness that invites us to project our own meanings onto its surface.