Church and Three Buildings 1961

Donald Greason made this watercolor and graphite drawing, Church and Three Buildings, on paper. It's a landscape that's almost entirely rendered in muted grays, which gives it a somber, contemplative mood. I love the way Greason uses line to create the sense of the scene. He is able to capture a feeling of wintery light with just a few strokes of graphite. Look at the way the lines of the trees in the background seem to dissolve into the sky. It's as if the whole scene is emerging from a mist. This piece reminds me a bit of some of Milton Avery's landscapes, in the way that it reduces a scene to its most essential forms and colors. But where Avery often uses bright, playful colors, Greason sticks to a more restrained palette. In the end it evokes a very specific time, place, and mood, and leaves us with a feeling of quiet solitude.