Shell Holes And Observation Balloon, Champagne Sector 1931

Horace Pippin made this painting of shell holes and an observation balloon in the Champagne sector, with what looks like a limited palette of grays and whites, and a kind of determined, raw, almost diagrammatic approach. Look at how he builds up the forms with small, repetitive strokes, like he's knitting the scene together. The texture is really something here, isn't it? You can almost feel the grit and the roughness of the landscape, the devastation made tangible. Then there’s the shell holes themselves, gaping and cracked, with these crazed lines radiating outward. The artist doesn't try to pretty things up or hide the damage. It’s like he’s saying, “Here it is, plain and unvarnished.” It reminds me of Guston, but earlier, and born of lived experience, where the making and the looking are one and the same. The beauty is in the truthfulness, in facing the hard stuff head-on, and in the end, that's what sticks with you.