Berkshires, Massachusetts 1925

John Marin captured "Berkshires, Massachusetts" with watercolor and charcoal, a medium that allowed him to express his dynamic vision of the American landscape. Marin was part of a generation of artists who wrestled with how to represent a rapidly changing America in the early 20th century. His choice to depict the Berkshires is significant, highlighting the appeal of rural America as a source of national identity and artistic inspiration. He uses loose, energetic brushstrokes and stark lines to convey the feeling of the landscape rather than a literal depiction, mirroring the modernist interest in subjective experience. His work has often been interpreted through the lens of masculine individualism, a common trope in American art. Marin once said, "The true artist must perforce go from time to time to the elemental big Forms—Sky, Sea, Mountain, Plain." But, it's worth considering how Marin's landscapes also provided a space to negotiate his own identity in relation to the changing social and environmental landscape of America. Marin's watercolors offer a window into the complex relationship between identity, place, and representation in American modernism.