Music of the Jaguar 1977

Alice Baber created Music of the Jaguar using watercolors, a medium that lends itself to fluidity and chance. Look at how the colors seem to bloom and merge into each other. It’s like she’s letting the paint do its thing, embracing the unpredictable nature of the process. The material quality here is all about lightness and transparency. You can see the white of the paper shining through the washes of color, giving the painting an airy, ethereal feel. Those pink and lavender shapes hovering in the center are like floating petals, suggesting a delicate, almost musical rhythm. I think there's a dialogue between control and surrender. Baber's work reminds me a little of Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain paintings, though with a softer, more dreamlike quality. Ultimately, this piece encourages us to embrace the ambiguity and multiple interpretations that make art so endlessly fascinating.