Balen hooi op wagens aan de oever van de Theems 1936

Frank Short made this moody grey scene of hay bales on wagons by the Thames, though we don't know exactly when. I imagine him, maybe standing right there on the bank, squinting at the light, his hand moving back and forth, back and forth, making marks to capture the way the air feels heavy and damp. The rainbow arc is a beautiful compositional feature. The artist might have thought, how can I make this more interesting? And so he added it. I wonder, what was Short trying to say about the landscape, about labor, about the fleeting beauty of a rainbow after the rain? Whatever it was, it reminds us that art is an act of translation, of taking something from the world and transforming it into something new. We see that conversation across time, each artist building on what came before, adding their own brushstroke to the ongoing story of art. And it's never finished, that's what's so great.