Bell from Ship c. 1940

Robert W.R. Taylor made this delightful painting of a ship’s bell, probably with watercolor, though I feel like I can sense the metallic weight and deep shine of the object, and I can almost hear the echoey ‘ding-dong’ it would make. I wonder what Taylor was thinking as he made this little painting. I imagine that he saw the bell on display, or was maybe asked to depict it for a catalogue of ship's paraphernalia. I wonder if he was thinking about the ship it came from and the purpose of the bell? He seems to relish the curls and flourishes of the decorative frame, but then the dark mass of the bell itself feels like an anchor, heavy with meaning. Painting is like an embodied conversation with other paintings across time. Taylor here seems to draw on the folk art tradition in the way he flattens the object. He embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, and the result is, for me, a charming work of art.