Willow Tree 1930

Louis Lozowick made this lithograph, called Willow Tree, sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The tree’s the thing, right? How it rises up in front of the house, all gnarly and dark, a kind of screen, or maybe a filter, for seeing the world. Look at the way he builds up the blacks, layer after layer. It’s almost velvety. The texture gives everything this kind of…weight. You can practically feel the tree's rough bark and the soft shadows around the house. I keep coming back to the upper trunk – where the tree has been cut, or broken. It is like the tree has been wounded, but continues to grow. It’s a quiet image, but also maybe about resilience. And there’s something about the way the tree dwarfs the house that makes me think about our place in the world, how nature always has the upper hand. Think of Charles Burchfield, who makes these incredible watercolours, kind of gothic and full of feeling, where houses are always in dialogue with nature. Anyway, that's what I see, but what do *you* see?