Watercolor c. 20th century

This small watercolor painting at the Minneapolis Institute of Art is by an anonymous artist, and shows what looks like a blanket or a woven mat, but painted. I wonder about the person who made this work. They carefully rendered the horizontal stripes of alternating green, red, and white tones with a steady hand. The edges look raw, so maybe this woven object has frayed over time. I can imagine the artist leaning over the original weaving, trying to capture the essence of the textile. Notice the zig-zagging pattern in the middle, rendered in muted reds and greens, breaking up the horizontal lines. Perhaps this artist was paying homage to a craft they admired, or maybe they were thinking about the intersection of art and everyday life, or maybe the painting is a study of color and form, and the different ways to explore these using paint! Painting is like a conversation across time, each artist responding to the other, weaving together new ways of seeing and feeling.