Early Harvest 1942

Bruce Mitchell made this dreamy scene of a harvest with lithographic crayon on paper. The blue sky is streaked with white, and the gold of the wheat shimmers in the sunlight. I wonder, when Mitchell made this, was he thinking about what it means to gather? How we pluck what we need from the land? I imagine him pressing that waxy crayon into the paper, trying to get just the right balance between representation and feeling. See how the wheat in the foreground is rendered with these long, flowing strokes of tan and green, which make them appear almost abstract? Each mark contains both the physical description and his emotional response. It’s a way of seeing that acknowledges the beauty and rhythm of the natural world. It reminds me of Van Gogh's fields or even some of Millet's paintings of peasant life. All these artists are in conversation with one another, aren’t they? Each one building on what came before, trying to capture the world in their own way. Making pictures is hard work, just like farming.