Castor Oil Plant 1927

Wanda Gág made this drawing of a castor oil plant sometime in the first half of the 20th century. Look at the plant’s pointy leaves and the strange seedpods, all haloed with a warm, rusty glow. I can imagine Gág sitting with her colored pencils, really looking, thinking, what is it like to *be* that plant? Gág layers strokes of green, blue, and yellow to show how the light falls across each leaf, making them look faceted, like little jewels. A few spots of bright red draw your eye to the center of the composition. I'm thinking about Georgia O’Keeffe and her close-up studies of flowers, but Gág brings something different. There's a kind of funky, folk-art quality, a warmth to the drawing that comes from the artist’s hand and eye, not trying to get it perfect, but trying to understand something about life.