A slender ray of light

'The Seduction of Light: Ammi Phillips/Mark Rothko Compositions in Pink, Green and Red', open until March 2009 at the American Folk Art Museum is one of those ideas held by a very slender thread. The correspondences the curator sees in the works in looking at the effect of light through such elements as color and form and in color mixing by artist's hand could be applied to any number of painters. She further stretches the thread by referencing the rapturous pinks of European religious painting and suggests a reference in these two painters, one of whom never left an early America. Linking painters throughout history who love the art is certainly democratic, but this show has too slender a premise for me. That being said, you should run up and see the show, one glorious painting after another, a slender ray of light enormously satisfying and illuminating.