Station of the Cross No. 5: "Jesus is Assisted in Carrying His Cross c. 1936

This watercolor on paper, by William Herbert, shows the fifth Station of the Cross: Jesus being assisted in carrying his cross. The surface is fairly flat. The artist is dealing with something monumental and has scaled it down, working it out. The figures are tightly arranged and rendered in watercolor washes of blue, brown, and red. The lines feel deliberately awkward, and I can imagine Herbert building up the image, figuring out how to describe the weight, volume, and emotion of the scene. The image is rendered in a naive, almost folk-art style, with a kind of honest crudeness, reminiscent of early modern painters. It’s interesting to see how artists like Herbert, in their own way, respond to the conversations and motifs present in canonical art history. In the end, all art is just human expression. The best art manages to find a language for this expression that feels fresh, raw, and undeniably personal.