The Plow and the Song 1946

Arshile Gorky's "The Plow and the Song" is a large canvas made with oil paint, and subtle pencil lines that barely lift off the surface. Gorky thinned down his medium, almost like watercolor, creating veils of tone. These muted colors give the painting an ethereal quality. Look closely, and you will see how the material is applied in thin layers, so it does not assert its own material presence. The washes pool and blend on the canvas, creating organic shapes and suggestive forms. These techniques are typically associated with craft rather than fine art. Yet Gorky's gesture seems effortless, in line with his surrealist sensibility. The painting becomes a site where the unconscious mind can play out in the material. It also represents his personal history, of the Armenian genocide, and of a lost homeland. It’s important to consider how Gorky used materials and his physical process to express something beyond the surface. It challenges traditional boundaries between high art and more personal, experimental forms of making.