Children Dance 1944

William H. Johnson has gifted us with a scene of such free expression, painted in what looks like simple house paint on a humble support. I imagine Johnson, maybe listening to music, layering the figures one by one, building up a scene, with the dark outlines that hold the figures like soft lead came in stained glass. I love the way the white gloves, or are they hands, pop against the dresses. I bet he was thinking about Matisse, maybe even Romare Bearden. This form of painting isn’t about getting it right but more about feeling your way through it, until it feels right. There is no shading, no perspective, just the pure joy of placing one color next to another and trusting that the feeling you are trying to share comes through! And it does. Doesn't it? Painters are always having this kind of conversation with each other across time, you know, borrowing ideas, arguing, riffing off each other's energy. Painting is alive that way, a form of embodied expression.