Ceiling Decoration c. 1941

William Kieckhofel made this ceiling decoration with watercolor on paper. Just imagine him, maybe standing on a ladder, looking up. This drawing isn't just a flat image; it's a plan, a vision of something grander, architectural. I’m thinking about all the sketches that artists make – the trying, failing, and trying again. It's like a dance with the subject, isn't it? You try to pin it down, but it keeps moving. Look at the ornament—the blues and golds singing together. It feels both old and new, like a memory trying to surface. You know, painting is like that. We build on what’s come before. Kieckhofel might have been looking at the Renaissance, at Byzantine mosaics, mixing them with his own time. And those arches—they’re not just shapes, they suggest space, weight. You can feel the structure rising. Artists are always talking to each other, across time. This piece is a part of that big, ongoing conversation. It is like a painter is feeling their way through the dark, trying to find a form, a feeling, a way to make sense of it all.