Sowing 1940

William H. Johnson painted Sowing using fairly simple materials and a pared-down palette; it’s all about the feel, the surface, and what it evokes. The colours are laid on pretty flat, but there's something very tender in the way he builds this image. Take a look at the way Johnson paints the sky and ground; he applies thin washes of colour, but you can still see the texture of the canvas underneath. I can imagine his hand moving, almost meditatively. Notice how the yellow ground seems to vibrate against the brown stripes of the field. Then see how the figures are outlined with confident brushstrokes and filled in with darker colours. For me, the crude brushwork makes the scene feel intimate and personal, more like a folk tale than an observation. The whole painting reminds me a little of Horace Pippin's work, another artist who used simple forms to convey something really powerful about the human spirit. It's like they both understood that art doesn’t need to be complicated to be meaningful.