Haying Time (horizontal) 1941

Curator: Here we have "Haying Time," a 1941 watercolor print by Bernard Joseph Steffen. Editor: Oh, I'm immediately struck by this comforting naiveté. It feels almost dreamlike. The colors, that cobalt blue sky against the golden hay... and those toiling figures emerging from the landscape itself! Curator: Precisely. Steffen has composed a scene both bucolic and allegorical. The figures seem integrated into the harvest—are they born of it, or consumed by it? The palette leans toward muted tones, lending a sense of history. Editor: You're right about that historical quality. The haystack almost becomes a stand-in for an archetypal symbol. Something primal about this collective effort and shared toil. The stylized depiction and rendering, I think, leans heavily on symbols of "working the land". A figure reaching with outstretched hands towards the birds perhaps signifies the reach towards greater abundance... Curator: Consider too, the title "Haying Time". Time is a critical component of understanding Steffen's goal in using watercolors. Steffen likely sought to capture not just a snapshot, but an evocation of an era gone. Editor: Agreed, although, on closer inspection, there’s something almost anxious about the scale of the labor compared to the deep blue expanse of the sky, almost a struggle playing out for balance between people and landscape. Curator: Perhaps you're interpreting that sky as ominous! Steffen may instead be depicting it with an air of placid completion that is possible in harmony with our world. I'd lean to this more optimistic symbolic depiction. Editor: It does ask many questions... naive at first glance yet hinting to something of profound reflection that makes me linger a bit longer to appreciate what the painting seems to ask us to do with it, which might also be something more meaningful to the viewer personally... a story almost only the beholder knows. Curator: Absolutely. "Haying Time" is simple yet complex, personal, and far-reaching. It's that kind of contradictory push-pull, so prevalent in humanity that gives Steffen's artwork so much power.