Perfume Bottle

Editor: This is William Shearwood’s “Perfume Bottle,” a watercolor drawing from around 1936. The image has two small bottles floating against the page, which seems sparse. I’m interested in the symmetry, or asymmetry, in their placement and size. What’s your read of this piece? Curator: Note the composition. Two objects rendered with striking, rich, consistent cobalt watercolor are vertically staggered within the frame. There is a definite and deliberate formalism present in this work, evident both through symmetry and slight disjunction in spacing of the central floating objects. The artist creates tension between these two states. It is through this tension the artist implies, but avoids confirmation, of symbolic messaging, "forget me not." Editor: Interesting! The text included does provide context. Could the size differences between the two bottles mean anything formal? Curator: It introduces a play in scale. Given the inscription "exact size," one is compelled to measure against existing perfume bottles in the collection and question our interpretation and our reality as it stands here and in that exercise there is the creation of further meaning. The artist uses that to make the familiar, unfamiliar, inviting scrutiny into this composition through form alone. Do you find yourself focusing on anything else? Editor: I'm thinking about the title of the drawing and also the overall structure. The “Forget me not” refers both to an inscription in the one bottle and the printed words near the middle of the page. Curator: Exactly, language itself becomes structure, an integral component of the composition. Notice that a structural loop or echo has been made, further implicating these bottles and this request into Shearwood’s larger visual calculus. Editor: I learned how seemingly straightforward art can still create compelling forms and visual structures, and ask the audience to actively interpret them. Curator: I agree; such close readings show how effective formal analysis is in decoding the meaning within art, absent historic understanding of it's inception.