Glass Water Pitcher c. 1938

Helen Bronson made this painting of a glass water pitcher, and right away I’m wondering, what kind of brush did she use? Look at the bands of color, purple and yellow, almost like the ridges of a gourd, or stripes of light hitting the glass. I bet the paint went on thin, maybe watercolour or gouache? There's a deliberate quality to each stroke, and I imagine her trying to capture the way light bends through the glass. It looks to me like she really thought about the nature of seeing and representing the world around her, one careful stripe at a time. That handle, shaded from gray to white, is great too! The whole image reminds me that painting, whether abstract or representational, is an ongoing conversation about how we perceive and interpret what we see.