Farm Family 1940

William H. Johnson made this painting, Farm Family, using oil on paper. The shapes are simplified, almost like a child's drawing, but there's a real sophistication in how he uses colour, like that intense yellow ground against the muted grey sky. The paint is applied flatly, no fussy details, just bold strokes that build up the image. It’s not about what things look like, but more about how they feel, you know? There’s a kind of directness, a rawness that gets right to the heart of the subject. Look at the faces of the family, so simply rendered, yet so full of emotion. Those wonky fences and those floating red shapes above the horizon remind me of some of the early American modernists, like Marsden Hartley, who were also trying to find a new way of seeing the world, a way that wasn't about imitation but about expression. Art’s all about this ongoing conversation, right?