Fireman's Helmet 1938

Eugene Bartz made this watercolor painting of a Fireman's Helmet in 1938. It's the kind of piece where you feel like you can see the artist figuring things out as they go, the pale gray wash of the brim bleeding into the white of the paper, and the red dome built up in layers. Looking closely, the watercolor reveals itself as a really physical medium. See how the faded reds of the helmet’s crest aren’t smooth but mottled, almost like a dried-up sponge was dabbed to add the color? The layering gives this feeling of depth and age to a relatively flat medium. The details are what makes this piece hum, the carefully rendered ladder on the helmet's frontispiece, the way the gold trim casts a shadow on the dome. There's something about Bartz’s focus on everyday objects that reminds me of Fairfield Porter’s watercolors, that same attention to the beauty of the mundane, the way light hits a surface, and the joy of capturing it all with a brush. In the end, it's the painting's quirks and uncertainties that make it so alive.