Mortar and Pestle 1935 - 1942

Janet Riza rendered this "Mortar and Pestle" with watercolor paints, and you can feel the care she took in depicting it. I can almost see her, right, carefully layering the washes of color, coaxing form out of the flat paper. The mortar is mostly shades of reddish brown, it’s all smooth curves and subtle gradients, and the pestle is a cool light blue. It is like a very simple, contained world in itself. The light is hitting them just so. The shadows on the mortar seem to imply the weight and density of the object, contrasting with the lighter, more ethereal quality of the pestle. It's like she's not just painting objects, but also trying to capture the feeling of how those objects relate to each other. Painters are always looking at each other's work across time, building on what's come before, riffing, responding. Janet's quiet attention reminds me of Giorgio Morandi's still lifes, those humble arrangements of bottles and jars transformed into something monumental. There is so much to see here.