White Flower c. 1917

Marsden Hartley made this painting of a white flower, probably in oil on canvas. It's hard to know exactly when, but I can imagine him, in his studio, maybe upstate somewhere, pushing paint around, starting with a dark blue ground. He probably built the painting up, bit by bit, pushing the white of the petals against the dark background. I can imagine Hartley thinking about other painters, Cezanne maybe, or even Van Gogh, wrestling with how to capture the essence of something as simple as a flower. The orange vase really glows, doesn’t it? And the way he's dabbed at the petals with his brush – it's like he's trying to find the form, not just copy it. I love the way he’s balanced the tones; the way the dark blue sits against the white of the flower. Painting is this ongoing conversation, across time, with other artists. Hartley, like all of us, was part of this exchange, trying to work it out, moment by moment, gesture by gesture.