Buttercup Time 1920

Willard Metcalf made this painting, Buttercup Time, most likely with oil on canvas, and look at that colour! Imagine Metcalf standing in a field of buttercups, wrestling with the light. He's smearing thick strokes of buttery yellow and vibrant green, trying to capture the shimmer of the field and the sleepy village in the background. There is a dialogue happening between tones and textures. The soft, round clouds seem to echo the roundness of the trees, like shapes flirting across the canvas. It’s as though he is asking, how do you paint a feeling? How do you show the air moving? It reminds me of those Impressionists, of course, Monet, Pissarro, but Metcalf is doing his own thing, wrestling with the same questions, answering them in his own voice. Artists are always in conversation, aren't they? Looking, learning, stealing a little, adding their own twist. It's all one big, beautiful, messy dialogue.