Danish Roadside 1930

William H. Johnson made this oil painting, Danish Roadside, with confident brushstrokes and a palette that sings of greens, browns, reds, and blues. I can see him building up the scene, piece by piece, with juicy paint. I imagine Johnson standing there, feeling the Danish air, thinking about form and color. It's like he's wrestling with the scene, trying to pin down the fleeting feeling of a day. Look at the way he dabs and swirls the paint for the trees – it's less about perfect representation, and more about the energetic presence of nature. The paint is applied quite thickly here, conveying a real sense of the materiality of the world he is depicting. Johnson, like so many of us painters, engages in a long conversation with painting itself. He looks back, and we look at him now, each adding our voice to the discussion. Painting is an embodied experience that allows for ambiguity and uncertainty. It allows for multiple interpretations, resisting fixed meanings.