Branding Iron c. 1942

Elizabeth Johnson painted this branding iron with watercolors probably sometime in the twentieth century. I imagine the way she worked with these materials: dipping the brush in water, mixing colors, and coaxing the image from the flat surface of the paper. I wonder what Johnson was thinking as she depicted this tool. The branding iron sits on the page, not quite floating, but stark and isolated. You can see the way she carefully rendered the details of the metal, its heft, and the specific shape of the brand. The color of the iron is echoed in the smaller version below, a kind of ghost or shadow of the real thing. It reminds me how much seeing is about touch, too. You can almost feel the heat and weight of the metal, even through the cool distance of the watercolor. Painters often look to each other, across time and space, riffing on themes and ideas. Johnson’s attention to detail reminds me of the precision of artists like Dürer or the American precisionists, but her subject is all her own: a humble, everyday object imbued with history and meaning.