Vermont Hills 1936

Milton Avery made these 'Vermont Hills' with paint, sometime. I wonder what it felt like for Avery to stand there, maybe squinting a little at the scene. You know, the way the light does funny things to colors, making everything a little less obvious. I imagine him mixing up this dreamy palette of muted greens and blues. There's a kind of scrappy simplicity to the brushstrokes, like he’s not trying to copy nature, but sort of translate it. Look at how he dabs the paint, building up these layers that create this sense of depth and atmosphere. You can almost feel the cool air, the quietness of the landscape. And the black mass on the left? It’s like a dark thought bubbling up – or maybe just a shadow. Avery had this way of boiling things down to their essence. He wasn't about photorealism, he was more interested in the feeling of a place. He’s in conversation with artists like Rothko and Matisse, distilling the world into planes of colour. It makes you think about how we see, and what it means to capture a moment.