Tree Forms, Maine 1915

John Marin made this watercolor, Tree Forms, Maine, with loose washes of color and quick, gestural marks. I can almost feel Marin outside with his paper on a sunny day. Those greens and earth tones evoke a sense of place, of being in the woods, but it's also how the artist interprets nature through the act of painting. Look at the way the brushstrokes dance around, they don't so much represent trees as they embody the feeling of being among them, you know? I bet he worked fast, letting the water do its thing. You can see how he allows the colors to bleed and blend. It reminds me a little of Cézanne’s watercolors. The looseness and spontaneity capture a fleeting moment, a feeling. It's like he's not trying to copy nature, but trying to embody it. And I guess, in a way, that’s what we all try to do.