The Grove – Monhegan 1913

This is George Bellows’ painting *The Grove – Monhegan*. It’s got these really gestural marks in a palette of blues, greens, and yellows. I can almost see him wrestling with the canvas, trying to capture the essence of that grove. It’s like he’s building the scene, pushing and pulling the paint until it emerges as this vibrant, breathing space. I sympathize with Bellows here. I think about his artistic lineage. Maybe he's thinking of the Impressionists, or maybe even some of the more tonalist painters. What must it have been like to stand there, brush in hand, trying to distill the world into these strokes? The texture of the paint, thick in places, adds this whole other layer. It makes you want to reach out and feel the roughness of the bark, the coolness of the water. That yellow tree in the center — it’s like a burst of light. A signal. Artists are always in conversation, riffing off each other, building on what came before. And with painting, there’s always this ambiguity, this uncertainty. It’s never just one thing. And there is something wonderful in that.