Nine Figures 1921

Arthur Bowen Davies made 'Nine Figures' with watercolor, and maybe he was thinking about the way a drawing can seem to appear from almost nothing. He uses thin washes of color, layering translucent shapes and figures to make a composition that feels very dreamlike. You can see the push and pull of his decisions as the figures emerge, shift and float. It makes me think about Degas’ dancers, or maybe even some classical frieze - but somehow softer, more ephemeral. Look at the way the figures overlap and how the light seems to filter through them, creating a sense of movement and rhythm across the surface. I wonder about the conversation Davies was having with other artists when he made this, what he was looking at, what he wanted to capture. The lovely thing about painting is that it allows for such ambiguity, and an artist is in an ongoing exchange of ideas with other artists that transcends time.