Corridor of Summer c. 1910

Arthur Bowen Davies made this painting, Corridor of Summer, with oils, at a time we don't know. See how the paint is laid down in dreamy veils of greens and blues, punctuated by those floating blue flower shapes? I can almost feel him layering the paint, trying to build a space that’s both real and imagined. I wonder what Davies was thinking about when he made this? Was he trying to create an Arcadia, a paradise? Maybe he was thinking about Puvis de Chavannes? There’s this way the figures are placed in the landscape, not really interacting, but just existing in the same space. Each brushstroke seems like a little meditation. Like the way the figure in the foreground reclines, gazing up, lost in thought. It's like he’s inviting us to wander through a dream, you know? To me, painting is about this kind of conversation across time, artists echoing and responding to each other, trying to capture something elusive about what it means to be alive.