White Birches c. 1908

Marsden Hartley’s painting, White Birches, presents an intense vision of a forest interior. The scene is built up through small, choppy marks in a range of earthy colours. It looks like Hartley really worked the paint into the canvas, almost wrestling the image into being. The texture is particularly interesting, isn't it? It's thick and uneven, but also somehow shimmering, like the light filtering through the leaves. Check out how he uses the whites and grays to describe the bark of the trees, but then adds touches of blue and pink. It's unexpected but gives the whole scene this amazing sense of liveliness. It kind of reminds me of some of Van Gogh’s landscapes. Both artists create an emotional experience through their intense engagement with the materiality of paint. Of course, Hartley has his own unique vision. It’s a vision that embraces ambiguity, inviting us to get lost in the forest, both literally and metaphorically.