Cow c. 1919

John Marin made this watercolor, Cow, on paper. It's so light, almost like a memory of a cow. I mean, look at the way he's letting the blue of the sky bleed into the white of the paper, and the loose lines that barely define the shape of the animal. It's like he’s capturing a fleeting impression. Marin's got this way of using color and line so economically, it’s all about the process of seeing and recording. It's like he's saying, "Here’s a cow, but it's also about the act of painting it, the gesture of the hand, the flow of the water." Notice how the spots on the cow aren’t just black, but a mix of grays and browns, and how the white isn't flat but has shadows and depth created by the thinnest washes. There's a real sensitivity to the way light plays on form. This reminds me a little bit of Arthur Dove’s watercolors, that same sense of American modernism that’s rooted in observation but also about capturing something more abstract, more emotional. It’s not just a cow, it’s an experience.