Vermont Landscape 1943

Milton Avery made this drawing, Vermont Landscape, with graphite on paper. The marks here are searching, tentative, a real sense of an artist trying to figure something out right in front of them. There is a kind of looseness and freedom in the way the forms are described. The mountain in the background almost dissolves into the sky, it's all suggestion, and not too much information. Take the little clump of trees in the foreground, for example, quickly jotted down, more feeling than fact. And that’s where the beauty lies, in the immediacy, in the way Avery captured the essence of the scene with such economical means. I’m reminded of Guston's late drawings, that same kind of directness and honesty. It is a reminder that art doesn't always need to shout to be heard; sometimes, it’s the quiet, subtle voices that resonate the loudest.