Sea Bird Saga VI 1966

Wallace Bradstreet Putnam made this charcoal drawing, called Sea Bird Saga VI, sometime in the 20th century. Charcoal, right? It’s all about the smudge, the fade, the suggestive line. I love the way Putnam uses it here to create a world that's both solid and dissolving. Look at how the strokes build up the rocks in the foreground—dark, dense, almost like a memory taking shape. But then your eye drifts up to the water, and it's all soft edges and ghostly birds. It's like the landscape itself is exhaling. And there's this lone figure standing on the edge, gazing out at the sea. Are they a part of the landscape, or separate from it? Maybe Putnam is thinking of someone like Marsden Hartley, finding these quiet, melancholic moments in the Maine landscape. I'm never quite sure what Putnam wants us to think. And, honestly, I'm glad for that.