Civil War 1994

Bo Bartlett made "Civil War" with oil paint, and I'm really taken by its directness and the sense of a story unfolding. I can imagine him working on this, layering the paint to build up the figures and the landscape, probably using a bunch of different brushes and maybe even a palette knife to get those varied textures. The cool palette gives it a dreamlike feel, like a memory or a myth. There's something really powerful in the way he's handled the reflection in the water, almost like another world existing just beneath the surface. I think it's related to other figurative painters such as Philip Guston, who use these images to make sense of the world, or Marlene Dumas, who is deeply invested in how painting can reflect the human condition. Ultimately, I feel like Bartlett is inviting us to bring our own experiences and interpretations to the painting, acknowledging the past while looking towards an uncertain future. It’s a reminder that art isn’t just about what we see, but about how we feel and what we imagine.