Hearts and a Watercolor 1969

This is Jim Dine’s "Hearts and a Watercolor," a 1969 print, and it's got all these hearts floating in a line, each one different, like a set of emotional states. It makes me think about artmaking as a process of trying on different feelings and ways of seeing. I love how Dine uses line. Some hearts are built from layers of outlines, others are scribbled so densely they’re almost black. Then there’s that one watercolor heart, bottom left, bursting with rainbow hues. It’s so flat and contained, compared to the scratchy, unruly hearts. The materiality of this piece is so present. You can almost feel the scratch of the etching needle, see the bleed of the watercolor. The contrast between the precise, almost technical lines and the fluidity of the watercolor creates a tension that keeps the eye moving. Dine's hearts remind me a little of the personal iconography of someone like Cy Twombly, who made work that was also deeply intuitive. Art is a conversation across time, a way of working through ideas and feelings, always embracing multiple interpretations.