Bugs and wings and other things – frontispiece 1918

Jessie Willcox Smith made this image as the frontispiece for a book, and it’s got that delicate watercolor touch, almost like she was breathing color onto the page. Check out how Smith layers the blues and greens, creating a kind of dreamlike forest. It's all so soft and washy, you can almost feel the dampness of the woods. And then, bam! There’s that little black bug, so crisp, it's like the whole picture hinges on its tiny, shiny body. That bug, it's like a full stop in a sentence, a tiny moment of surprise that makes you pause and really look. It reminds me of the surrealist painters, like Miro, who would throw in these sharp, unexpected details that suddenly change how you see everything. It's all about the process of seeing, and questioning what you think you know.