Still Life No. 3 1923

This is Marsden Hartley’s 'Still Life No. 3' at the Art Institute of Chicago; it's anyone’s guess when it was made, but I reckon he applied these brushstrokes with oil paint, probably alla prima, building this composition of objects with earthy reds, pinks, greens, and browns. I see the brushstrokes pushing and pulling, trying to find the shape, the tone, and the light. The paint is applied pretty thickly and opaquely, giving the surface a tactile and material quality. I wonder if Hartley was thinking about Cézanne when he made this? Or maybe he was just trying to capture the beauty of these simple, everyday objects. There's a sensitivity to how he handles the paint, a sort of tenderness that really resonates with me. Painting is a form of looking, and I see this looking as a form of feeling too. Artists carry on a visual conversation across time, inspiring each other, and creating new ways of seeing the world.