Anemones c. 1910 - 1912

Henry Lyman Saÿen made this painting, Anemones, sometime around the turn of the last century with oil on canvas. I can imagine him standing here, squinting at the flowers, then at the canvas, trying to capture the right shape of a petal, the particular curve of the vase. The paint here is brushed on thinly, scrubbed in places, allowing the pale green ground to breathe through. I can imagine Saÿen mixing a small pile of cadmium red on his palette, and then gingerly, almost tentatively, dabbing it onto the flower. There's a quiet intensity here, a kind of looking that leads to feeling. Painting flowers, or still lifes, or landscapes—it’s a way to slow down, to notice what's right in front of you. Painters keep working from other paintings, they work and rework, endlessly. They create a shared, unspoken understanding through this shared process. We all keep learning from one another.