Wash Bowl and Pitcher c. 1937

Charles Caseau’s ‘Wash Bowl and Pitcher’ is a watercolor on paper, and it feels like an exercise in transparency, both literal and metaphorical. Look at how the bowl and pitcher shimmer with delicate blues and greens, capturing the way light dances through glass. I can almost feel Caseau carefully layering each wash of color, building up the forms with a patient hand. It's as if he's not just painting objects, but the very essence of light and reflection. What was Caseau thinking as he was making the work? I imagine he was in conversation with the still life paintings of Cezanne, which also capture quotidian objects. The painting reminds us that artists are always in dialogue with each other, across time and space, riffing on each other’s ideas, inspiring new ways of seeing. Painting is this embodied expression that embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations and meanings, and never settling on one definitive reading.