Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV 1930

Georgia O'Keeffe made Jack-in-the-Pulpit No. IV using oil paint. Look how she moves from the vivid greens at the edges, through the deepest blacks, to that pulsing white center. It's like watching a flower open right before your eyes, not in real-time, but in paint-time. O'Keeffe builds up these layers so smoothly, it's hard to see the brushstrokes. The surface is so sleek it’s almost like you could dive right in. That central form, that white ‘jack’, is so luminous against the dark around it. It’s not just about representing a flower; it’s about the experience of seeing, of feeling the flower's presence. Think about the way Agnes Martin used subtle gradations of tone to induce meditative contemplation, O’Keeffe did something similar here, but with more drama, more intensity. It makes you wonder, what else can paint do that we haven’t even imagined yet?