Horse Weather Vane 1935 - 1942

Here's a muted monochromatic silhouette of a galloping horse, made by Joseph Rothenberg. I can almost feel him figuring out how to cut this shape, maybe with tin snips, and how to suggest movement. I wonder what Rothenberg was thinking as he made this? About form and function, about how to capture the spirit of a horse. You see so many weathervanes, and each artist has to solve the problem of creating a 2D shape that signifies depth, weight, energy. The way the horse is suspended in a perpetual gallop makes me think about the way paintings capture a moment, too. How do you get something static to suggest something dynamic? The texture looks almost like wood grain. It is this shadow of history that interests me most; the cumulative effect of mark making that speaks to the potential for the medium and, beyond that, a sense of something really important. It is a feeling as much as an idea, and painting lets us explore these areas of feeling.