Water Lilies

Here is Water Lilies, by Jack Beal, hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago. Check the label near the frame for the number, 1976.649, so you know you have found the right one.

No date is recorded for this piece, so do not worry about placing it in his career. Just take it as it stands in front of you.

I want to tell you the title is a nod to Monet, but I do not know how Beal treats it here, so let your own eyes do that work. Stand back first and take in the whole canvas. What kind of space is this, a pond, a garden, something more invented. Then step close and look at how the paint itself behaves. Is it soft and blended, or does it sit in visible strokes. That choice tells you a lot about what the painter cared about.

Beal worked in a period when many American painters were turning back toward the visible world, toward solid things you could recognize, after decades of painting that had moved away from them. So one honest question to ask in front of this canvas is whether that is what you are seeing. Does this feel like a return to looking hard at something real, or is it doing something else entirely with that old, borrowed title.

I do not have solid facts about the size of this work, or what year Beal made it, so I will not guess. What I can offer is this. Titles like Water Lilies carry weight. They ask to be measured against Monet's ponds, whether the artist wants that comparison or not. So here is something to do while you stand there. Look for what water actually looks like in this painting, if there is water at all. Look for where the light seems to be coming from. And ask yourself honestly, is this painting in conversation with the old idea of water lilies, or has Beal simply borrowed the name and gone his own way.