Sowing 1940

William H. Johnson made this painting, called Sowing, without a specific date, but it looks like it was created with layers of feeling. I'm drawn to the flat, graphic quality and how he’s reduced everything to almost cartoonish shapes. It must have been such a joy to create a scene using such bold simplification. The figures become these abstract, but deeply human forms amidst a yellow field with a blue shed. I imagine Johnson layering the paint, pushing the colors around, trying to find the right balance between representation and abstraction. Look at the crescent moon; it’s this simple arc, but it evokes a sense of time and place, maybe even longing. These figures are going about their work, a timeless scene. You can see echoes of other artists who played with form and color, like the German Expressionists, who were also mining folk art for its raw, unmediated expression. It reminds us that artists are always in conversation, borrowing, riffing, and building upon what came before.