At Five in the Afternoon 1949

Robert Motherwell made this painting, *At Five in the Afternoon*, with oil on canvas. It’s a real dance of black and white, a colour palette as old as time, but here it’s like a stage for something dramatic. The shapes! They’re not quite anything, but they feel like everything. Look closely, and you’ll see how the black paint is laid on, sometimes thick, sometimes thin, almost like he was sculpting with the brush. There’s this one spot on the upper right side, where the white peeks through, a little rebellion against the black. That mark, it’s like a moment of hesitation, a breath before the next big move. Motherwell, like his pal Philip Guston, always knew how to make paintings that are more like feelings, and it's as if the process becomes the point. The way he lets the paint do its thing, that’s the whole conversation right there.