Daughter in a Rocker 1917 - 1918

Henry Lyman Saÿen made *Daughter in a Rocker* with paint, and he laid down each color with care. The colors are held in check, not allowed to bleed into each other, but still somehow sing. There's a flatness to the piece, an almost decorative quality, but then you notice the little waves of paint in the blue sections, or the hatch marks that build up the face in profile. It’s these intimate moments that save it, and push it into the realm of lived experience. The overall effect is joyful, even though the palette is somewhat muted, like a memory or an echo of a brighter reality. I keep coming back to the yellow of the daughter's hair; it's so solid, so contained. It feels like a shield, a protection against the world. Saÿen's work reminds me a bit of Marsden Hartley, another American modernist who wasn't afraid to embrace bold colors and flattened forms. Art’s a conversation, right?