Bellows 1935 - 1942

Here's Benjamin Resnick's 'Bellows,' created sometime in the twentieth century with, it seems, watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper. Look at the way the artist has carefully rendered this object, which seems so... old. The color palette is muted, warm, and earthy, with the reds of the flowers providing a lovely contrast. I can imagine Resnick carefully building up each layer of color, each detail added with precision and care, one tiny decision at a time. I wonder what it was like for Resnick to create this work. What thoughts were in his head as he worked? Was he thinking about the history of this object? What does it mean to blow air? To fan flames? I feel he is in dialog with folk art traditions, with a kind of primitive impulse in his art-making. I see this kind of impulse in a lot of painting; it reminds me that artists are always in an ongoing conversation, inspiring one another's creativity.