Zinnias c. 1915

Charles Demuth made this watercolour called ‘Zinnias’, we don’t know exactly when, and it’s such a loosey-goosey rendering of a traditional still life! Look at those blooms, rising from the murky grey ground. The paint is so thin and washy, bleeding and mixing on the surface of the paper, like thoughts in the artist’s mind. I can imagine Demuth leaning over his paper, pushing the wet paint around to find just the right balance between representation and abstraction. There’s something slightly unsettling about this work. Are the flowers alive, or are they wilting? Are they a symbol of beauty, or are they a reminder of mortality? Maybe the greyscale represents memory, the dark parts are grief, and the flowers are longing. We can never really know what an artist was thinking when they made something, and that’s part of the beauty of painting! Artists respond to one another across time and place, building on each other’s ideas and innovations, pushing the medium forward. Painting allows for endless readings, shifting with time, and always open for interpretation.