Dreams No. 2 1965

Jacob Lawrence made this painting, Dreams No. 2, using tempera on paper. What gets me about this image is how Lawrence sets up a tension between flatness and depth. There’s this gorgeous layering of color, almost like collage, that pulls the eye every which way. Look at the way he builds up the surface with thin washes. The paint feels almost translucent in places, especially in that dreamy vision through the window, and the green wall to the left. You can see the brushstrokes moving in all directions. And then there are these moments of intense color, like the pink and red stripes on the woman's dress, or the bright yellow of her top, which pop out and flatten the space again. This push and pull makes the image feel alive, like a dance between the real and the imagined. It reminds me a little of Matisse, but with a distinctly American flavor.