Garage No. 1 1917

Stuart Davis's "Garage No. 1," made in 1917, is a scene pieced together with square brushstrokes in muted blues, greys, and yellows, a world seen through the eyes of someone ready to break it all down. I imagine Davis standing there, squinting at the commonplace of the garage, the car, and the gas pump, not just seeing them but feeling them as shapes, as rhythms. Look at how the tree becomes a series of vertical lines, echoing the pump's form, and how the car's angularity is almost echoed by that window behind it. It’s like he's trying to distill the very essence of American modernity into these blocks of color, each dab a little decision, a little feeling, laid bare on the canvas. The orange of the pump shouts against the quieter tones, like a jazz note in a blues song, a hint of what's to come in his later, more abstract work. You can sense the beginning of that journey here, the push and pull between representation and abstraction, the artist finding his voice, one brushstroke at a time. It’s all just there, honest and searching.