Running Horse Weather Vane c. 1937

Alfred Denghausen made this "Running Horse Weather Vane" using watercolor and graphite on paper. The color palette here is minimal; earth tones, browns, and tans, which give it this rustic, grounded feel. It reminds me of folk art, where the process and the hand of the artist are visible. Looking closely, you can see the graphite lines underneath the watercolor, like a map of the artist’s decisions. The paint is thin, almost translucent in places, which lets the texture of the paper show through, adding depth and a sense of history to the piece. I keep coming back to the way Denghausen captured the horse’s muscles and form with such simplicity. It’s like a memory of a horse, or a dream of a horse, distilled to its essence. It shares something with the paintings of Milton Avery, in the way it reduces forms to their most basic shapes, and uses color to create a feeling of atmosphere and light. It’s this combination of simplicity and expressiveness that really gets me.