Three Houses, Barn and Chicken Coop, Stonington, Maine 1922

John Marin made this watercolor of “Three Houses, Barn and Chicken Coop, Stonington, Maine”, with a focus on process; look at how the pink and blue bleed and flow together, it’s really quite beautiful. The materiality of watercolor lends itself to transparent washes and fluid lines, which Marin exploits to create an atmosphere that is both dreamlike and immediate. It's as if he's trying to capture the feeling of a place rather than its exact appearance. I’m drawn to how the mountains are represented as jagged blue shapes, dissolving into the sky, a kind of echo of the houses below. Marin’s style, with its loose, expressive brushwork, reminds me a little of Cezanne, actually, both grappling with how to represent space and form in a way that feels dynamic and alive. The painting embraces a sense of ambiguity, suggesting that there is no single way to see or interpret the world.