Bit 1935 - 1942

Dana Bartlett’s watercolor, "Bit," captures a horse's bit, an object laden with cultural significance. The bit is rendered with careful attention to its metallic textures, the dark iron contrasting with the ornate, silver-inlaid cheek pieces. Bartlett was working at a time when American identity was being negotiated on multiple fronts. Representations of the American West often served to reinforce a mythologized version of frontier life, one which simultaneously celebrated rugged individualism and obscured the histories of violence and displacement upon which the West was built. The horse, and its accoutrements, became emblems of a particular kind of masculine freedom and power. Yet, there's an undeniable tension in this image. The bit, after all, is an instrument of control, a means of subjugating the animal's will. This tension perhaps reflects a broader ambivalence about power and freedom that continues to shape American identity. The image invites us to consider the ways in which objects can be both beautiful and symbolic of complex, often contradictory, cultural values.