Gay Madness (Gay Abstraction) 1933

Arthur Beecher Carles made "Gay Madness (Gay Abstraction)" using oils, and right away I see this painting as a process. Look at the brushstrokes, thick and playful, and the color palette exploding with energy. It's like Carles was having a conversation with the canvas, each color responding to the last. The textures are so alive, aren’t they? The paint is thick, almost sculptural in places, like he was building the image out of pure feeling. Then you have areas where the paint thins out, creating these translucent veils of color. I keep coming back to the lower left. Look at those dark blue strokes against the white – how they vibrate, pushing and pulling at each other. It’s so simple, but so full of tension. It makes you wonder, what is the source of this madness? You see echoes of someone like Marsden Hartley in Carles, that same willingness to push beyond representation. This piece feels like a celebration of the open-endedness of art, where there are no wrong answers, only endless possibilities.