Cattle Brand c. 1936

J. Henry Marley made this cattle brand, we don't know when, but it's made with what looks like ink on paper. What strikes me about this image is its simplicity. It's just this stark black mark against the white of the page. The line quality is really interesting - you can see the artist kind of wrestling with the pen. There's a wobble to it, a slight unevenness, which gives it a real handmade feel. It's like you can see the artist's hand moving across the page, trying to capture the shape of the brand. And that shape itself is so evocative. It's like a symbol, a kind of secret language that speaks to ownership and identity. I'm reminded of Cy Twombly's scrawls and gestures, the way he could create these monumental works out of seemingly simple marks. This cattle brand has that same kind of power, that same sense of something ancient and mysterious bubbling beneath the surface. It is an image that suggests more than it says.