Wharf and Rowboat 1938

Donald Carlisle Greason made this Wharf and Rowboat with ink on paper, and what grabs me is the way the ink almost resists becoming a picture, or a clear story. The wharf is a stack of pale grey blocks, with thin lines suggesting depth and shadow, while the rowboat sits on a band of darker, watery ink. The colors are muted, almost like a faded photograph, and there's a softness to the edges of the forms. Look at the way the figures in the boat are just suggested, smudged into existence. It’s like Greason is saying, "Here’s a world, but it’s not fixed, it’s always shifting, always becoming." I see a kinship with the watercolors of someone like Charles Burchfield, who also found a way to make everyday scenes shimmer with a kind of inner light. It's a reminder that art is often more about the questions it raises than the answers it provides.