The Rainbow 1961

Grandma Moses painted "The Rainbow" with oils to depict a bright, rural landscape. There's a real honesty to her mark-making, a kind of directness that bypasses all that art school nonsense. I love the way she layers the greens in the trees, each dab of paint a little spark of life. It's like she's not just painting a tree, but the feeling of being under a tree on a summer day, squinting up through the leaves. You can almost feel the texture of the bark and hear the rustle of the branches. Then, that rainbow! It’s blush of pink and pale yellow, so high up that it almost disappears into the sky. Her work makes me think of artists like Henri Rousseau. There's that same commitment to a kind of personal vision, the same willingness to put down what you see, even if it doesn't quite fit with the rules. Art is about feeling.