Wooden Christo, Painted (Side view) c. 1937

Majel G. Claflin made this watercolour of a painted wooden Christ figure sometime in the first half of the 20th century. It’s a small study, really, a painting *of* a sculpture, so twice removed from life. You can see the way she’s built up the image in translucent layers, watching the figure emerge, falter, and then resolve. I imagine Claflin standing there, brush in hand, considering how to convey the smoothness of the wood, the streaks of red paint, the set of the shoulders, and the fall of the head. Did she want to capture its agony, its history, or perhaps its very object-ness? The muted palette—the creams, greens, and reds—gives it a kind of faded, solemn intensity. Look how she used the white of the paper to let the figure glow. It reminds me a little of those early Renaissance painters who were also trying to figure out how to make something feel real, how to make the paint breathe. Each artist is always trying to figure out what it means to be human, and how to show that.