Side Chair c. 1940

Marian Curtis Foster made this watercolor painting of a side chair, but when exactly, we can’t be sure. What I love about it is how functional, like a piece of instructional design it seems, but then it's rendered with such love. The colors are mixed with lots of water, so they are transparent and soft and seem to bleed into each other just like my own do. The brown color is mixed, it is not one from a tube, it's made from layering different hues which makes the chair vibrate on the page. I especially love the way the artist has rendered the legs of the chair, the angles are just a little off. Look at the seat. Isn't it fabulous? I feel like I can really see the fabric of the cushion. This makes me think of artists like Fairfield Porter, whose quiet, observational paintings make the mundane seem remarkable. It makes me wonder: is there really such a thing as good or bad art, or just different ways of looking?