Kandy Kane Rainbow 1994

Charles Bell painted these hyperreal marbles with… airbrush, I guess? Or maybe just tiny brushes, in a style that’s so meticulously representational. It’s easy to look at a painting like this and think about skill, you know? All that virtuosity. But I’m thinking about the time it must have taken, and all the decisions, big and small, that went into arranging this still life. Did the artist have a favorite marble? Did he rearrange them often, searching for the perfect composition? Bell was part of a photorealist movement, and he was clearly interested in shape, color, and form. But I think he was also interested in the way we see. Look at how the light shines through the glass, how the shadows fall. I wonder if he considered how, through careful observation, we might see the world a little differently, a little more clearly. I sure hope so.