New England Lantern c. 1937

This New England Lantern by Harry Jennings—I can only imagine him drawing it with graphite or charcoal. It looks like a rubbing in some ways, the kind you'd make over a gravestone. And the light...it looks like dusk. I wonder about Jennings and what he was thinking as he drew this. Maybe he was thinking about New England's history, all the stars and diamonds, like a quilt. The lantern itself feels like a memory, maybe from childhood? It feels ghostly, as if lit from within, but also a little bit broken. Painters are always looking at other paintings and drawings, even if they don’t know it. I see the Dutch masters in Jennings’s work, that interest in light, but also maybe some folk art. Artists are magpies, collecting shiny bits of the world and each other’s work. We build on each other, and it's all one big, beautiful conversation.