Barrel still bank c. 20th century

This Barrel still bank, its maker now lost to us, is made of earthenware with slip glaze. It is so simple, so beautiful. Imagine the anonymous painter, turning the cylinder as they work, trying to get the lines straight. Not too fussed about it. Orange, green, and blue leaves sprout around a yellow middle band. The pinky peach of the ground showing through it all. This isn’t high art. More like art for your kitchen counter. But, when you get a painter going, all the marks they make speak to one another. The will to express something. An ongoing conversation between the artist and the surface. It is a language of feeling and an inquiry into how we see, and what seeing means. Each work builds on those that came before, reaching out to the ones that will follow.