Landscape with Mountains of Samaria, 1904 (from Sketchbook) 1904

Mary Newbold Sargent made this small monochrome watercolour, *Landscape with Mountains of Samaria*, from a sketchbook in 1904. I can imagine her sitting outside, sketching *en plein air*. Dipping her brush in water, adding pigment, and watching how the shapes began to emerge on the page. Look how she's built up the painting using washes, one layer at a time. See how the tree in the foreground is described with a darker tone, and how the mountain range in the distance becomes fainter and fainter, almost dissolving into the sky. Painting the landscape is like trying to capture a feeling, a memory, or a state of mind. Sargent's use of tone and form is reminiscent of Whistler and other Tonalist painters. In their quiet way, these artists are in an ongoing conversation across time. Painting remains a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity, and allowing for multiple interpretations, and meaning over fixed or definitive readings.