Study for the Saturday Evening Post cover, July 3 1915

This is J.C. Leyendecker’s preparatory study for the July 3rd Saturday Evening Post cover, made at some point prior to its publication. You can see his working out of the composition and the figures rendered in oil. The process is laid bare, revealing artmaking as an ongoing search. I love the way Leyendecker allows the materiality of the paint to remain visible. The brushstrokes are confident but not overworked, the washes are thin and transparent. The sketch-like quality, the way the figures appear and disappear, evokes the fleeting nature of memory. I keep coming back to the baseball player's feet, at the bottom right, which are rendered upside down. They anchor the composition while simultaneously defying gravity. The piece resonates with Edgar Degas' approach to painting, which similarly embraces the unfinished and the fragmentary. Ultimately, it’s about capturing the feeling of a moment, not necessarily representing it in a literal way.