A Glory of Painting 2009

Bo Bartlett made this painting, A Glory of Painting, with oil on linen. I can imagine him building up the image in layers, carefully and deliberately, using thin glazes of colour. I wonder, what was it like for Bartlett to paint this image? The painting has a stillness and a simplicity that evokes an emotional response in me. The composition reminds me of American Regionalist painters like Grant Wood, but the subjects are African American, updating the visual language of twentieth-century American painting. The palette has a soft, muted quality, and the figures seem to stand outside of time. I am curious to know more about the artist’s intention. Artists are always talking to each other across time, through shared ideas and mutual inspiration. Painting is a kind of embodied expression, full of ambiguities and uncertainties, allowing for multiple readings.