The Red Wheelbarrow

So much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of Auld Alliance Gallery, considering the work of a local artist, Pete Sullivan, William Carlos Williams’ (I’m hoping he went by Carlos) poem “Red Wheelbarrow” came to mind. The poem, which we recently dissected in English class, portrays a simple farm scene, which, at a second glance, is not so simple. In the same way, the simplicity of Sullivan’s work inspired me to look again. The scene has few defined edges, and the cars, seen only by their front lights and shadows, are the only animate objects. Two cars are easily made out, and a third set of lights peak over what seems to be a hill, or perhaps in front of the sheet of a morning fog. The fog is created by a transition of a cool color palette including a grey, baby blue, violet, and olive green that don’t distract the eye. The paint seems to have been applied like plaster with the edges of the strokes left unsmoothed. The gathering of the paint at the edges makes the painting appear still wet. Specific details of the cars and of the scene at large seem insignificant due to the rough outline of the four-wheeled objects and the horizontal strokes of thick paint applied.

And yet, just as “so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow,” so much depends upon the details of the scene. The reflection of the yellow lights of the cars on the road implies a dewiness to the highway, hinting at dawn or fresh rain. It is this play of light that also works to define the cars, which are made out by the combination of the shadows of their parts. The yellow reflections also hint at the shape of the indistinguishable road and the movement of the cars. This action is also seen in the simple realignment of words in Williams’ poem. The separation of basic words like “wheelbarrow” and rainwater” provide motion to a seemingly stagnant scene.

The details of the painting, however, are only seen after a closer look. Just as a greater tone of exists dependency exists within the simplicity of “The Red Wheelbarrow”, Sullivan’s work provides the observer with more at a second glance. Despite its original tone of simple ambiguity, at a second glance the details can be taken into consideration individually, and the piece then evokes a very different mood. The layering of colors is seen after a closer look. The transitioning color palette is in fact not just smears of blue, purple, and green, but an odd contradiction of the cool colors and their complements. The violets are layered over a bright pumpkin orange, and the yellow reflections rest on a blue road. Without this opposition, however, the lights would not be emphasized on the road and the movement of the cars would not be obvious to the observer. The frontal alignment of the leading car and the proximity of the following car suggest a hurried action. Although we sit as a sort of animal on the side of the highway we suddenly feel for the anonymous drivers behind the wheel of each car.

It is indeed the combination of these basic elements—the cars, the colors, the light, the strokes—reflected in the very words of Williams’ “Red Wheelbarrow, that give Sullivan’s work such an affect.