Restoration Drawing 1936

This Restoration Drawing was made with watercolor by Robert W.R. Taylor. Look closely, you can see the layered application of color, almost like a coloring-in exercise. It's about a kind of patience and exactitude, but also about something that is, by definition, not the real thing. The watercolor is thinly applied, allowing the paper's surface to breathe, and this translucency gives the colors a radiant quality, particularly in the wooden door, where the wood grain is meticulously rendered. It’s like Taylor is reverse-engineering the process of seeing; he's not just replicating what's there but deconstructing it, piece by piece. Take that little bit of red ornamentation up top, above the door frame; see how it's kind of floating there? It’s got this lightness, but also this almost aggressive quality. It wants to pop out. Taylor’s work reminds me a little of Charles Demuth and the Precisionists, but with a folksier feel. Ultimately, though, it's like he's having a conversation with the architecture itself, not so much representing as trying to conjure it.