Pa. German Dish 1938

Eugene Shellady made this *Pa. German Dish* sometime in the 20th Century, using watercolor and graphite. It is a painting of a plate, a kind of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art. I can imagine Shellady carefully mixing those earthy watercolors, testing them to get that folk art palette. He delicately paints the image of a bird amongst the plants, and then balances the composition with hand-rendered lettering. This piece resonates with the history of decorative arts. The slight inconsistencies in the drawing suggest that Shellady wasn't trying to achieve photorealism. It's more like he wanted to capture the essence of the form, with its own particular kind of charm. You can imagine the artist was working with the memory of a German painted plate, rather than the actual object itself. We, as artists, are always looking back, riffing on the past, playing a game of telephone across generations. That's how our visual language evolves.