Carousel Horse c. 1938

John Sullivan, made this Carousel Horse, probably in watercolor, and it feels like a real labor of love. Look how he’s built up the form with these delicate washes, almost like he’s sculpting with the paint. There's a real tenderness in the way he’s rendered the dappled gray of the horse’s coat. I keep coming back to the horse’s mane, how each strand is carefully delineated, giving it this wonderful sense of movement and texture. It’s not just about representation, it’s about really understanding the material qualities of hair, how it catches the light, how it flows. And the way he’s handled the shadows, so subtle, so precise, really grounds the figure in space. It reminds me of the kind of attention to detail you see in some of Durer’s animal studies, that same commitment to capturing the essence of the subject. It speaks to this idea of art as a conversation, a dialogue across time and traditions. It's this kind of searching that makes art so endlessly compelling.