Bandbox - Firemen Scene c. 1939

Walter Doran imagined this firemen scene on a bandbox, probably with watercolor or gouache. Looking at the repetition of forms here—the firemen, the windows, the leaves—I wonder what it was like for Doran to make this. Did he start with the figures, laying them out in a row, one after the other? Did he work from direct observation or memory? I bet it would have been a meditation on repetition and variation, like a mantra or meditative practice. I'm really drawn to how the ochre palette creates a kind of dreamlike, soft glow. The architecture and the firemen have a stylized rhythm that reminds me of Erna Thomsen’s block prints. There is a charming folk quality to the whole thing. You see, artists are always in conversation, across time and space. And ultimately, painting is an embodied expression—ambiguous, uncertain, and open to endless readings.