Flag: Civil War c. 1936

Edward Grant made "Flag: Civil War" with watercolor on paper. Looking at it, you can almost see the water spreading, blooming outwards, not rigidly contained but allowed to find its own edges. It reminds me of Fairfield Porter, who made watercolours en plein air. I wonder if Grant painted this picture from life or from memory? Maybe he was trying to capture the flag’s colours, the particular shade of red and blue, and the arrangement of stars. He may have been thinking about what the flag represented, both for him and for the people he knew. See how the red stripes bleed into the white, and the blue softly pools around the stars? Those little imperfections are where the painting comes alive for me. Painting a flag is like, how do you make it your own, while still acknowledging its weight? It's a visual problem with a lot of emotional baggage. And it's been done a lot. Think about Jasper Johns and his flags, and how he wanted to explore the boundary between painting and object. Grant's flag feels more personal, less conceptual. It’s a record of looking, feeling, and trying to understand. And there’s something so universal in that effort.