Georgia 2021

Bo Bartlett made this painting, titled 'Georgia', with oil on canvas. Look at how smooth and seamless the paint is! There are no brushstrokes, no sense of struggle on the surface. I imagine Bartlett calmly building up thin layers of paint, patiently pursuing a very specific image in his head. I wonder what he was thinking as he worked. Maybe he felt like he was paying homage to the Ashcan School painters like Thomas Eakins. There’s a kind of everyday heroism here, a classical, idealized figure set against the wheat fields of Georgia. It’s nostalgic, like a memory or a dream, and, I'm curious about the boy’s closed eyes and his serenity. The horizon line, though faint, is a guide, but perhaps the boy doesn't need it. Maybe he has an internal compass! Artists are always looking, always referring to each other across time. And, like life, paintings are full of ambiguities and things we can never fully know. But that's the beauty of it all, right?