Arctic Sunset 1973

Alexander Calder painted this Arctic Sunset in 1973. It’s deceptively simple, but so powerful in its directness, right? The shapes are really basic, almost cartoonish, and the colors are flat, bold primaries. Look at how he's used black outlines to define these shapes, giving it this great graphic quality. The red sun feels so immediate. It’s like he's saying, ‘Here it is! A sunset!’. It strikes me that Calder made his name with mobiles and sculpture, you know, forms in motion, so it's wild to see how he brings that sensibility to a flat surface. The way the sun radiates out, and the mountains rise up… it feels like movement, like a landscape caught in a single, explosive moment. The playfulness reminds me of Joan Miró, but Calder brings his own sense of balance and energy to it. It’s a reminder that art doesn't have to be complicated to be profound.