Shaker Newel Post c. 1937

John Kelleher, who lived between 1855 and 1995, made this delicate watercolour, which depicts a Shaker Newel Post. It's like a quiet meditation on form and function, wouldn't you say? I imagine Kelleher, perhaps in a sunlit room, carefully rendering each line, each shadow, trying to capture not just the object but the feeling of it. You know, the Shakers were all about simplicity and utility. They didn't do things by accident, so Kelleher would have been responding to that ethos, that pure, clean aesthetic. The palette he uses is restrained, earthy. Look at the gentle gradations of colour that describe the play of light on the wood. It feels like he’s trying to get at the essence of the object. What does it mean to hold something together? How can something be useful, but also beautiful? Painters are always in conversation with one another. Each brushstroke is a response to something that came before. You might wonder, how does this fit into the wider world of art? How do we, as viewers, climb the stairs in our own lives?