Mark Phillips' Pages: Workbook: 1/31/13: In many of his most striking images the figures lack shadow.

Jacob Lawrence, "Artist With Tools," 1994 — Jacob Lawrence, *Artist With Tools* (1994)

January 31, 2013:

In many of his most striking images the figures lack shadow.

His jungle struggles are brightly lit but lack the implied solidity of shade. Shadowless ball players float in an unreal space.

Rousseau, I think, is exploring abstraction of personality through abstraction of location. These people are no-one in part because they're no-where. They cast no shadows because they're not lit with the same light as the context in which they're presented.