New Hampshire Mountains 1924

John Marin made "New Hampshire Mountains" with crayon on paper, and what strikes me is how he managed to suggest so much with so little! I’m really feeling the breezy, broken lines of this piece; it looks like Marin was trying to catch the mountains on the fly. He was probably outside, maybe it was windy? I imagine him quickly trying to capture the gist of what he was seeing before the light changed or the feeling passed. The red and blue slashes feel like pure energy, you know? Like he's not just drawing mountains, he's drawing the *feeling* of mountains. Painters like Marin remind us that painting isn’t just about representation, it’s about intuition. It’s a conversation, with yourself, with the landscape, with the materials. It’s not about getting it right, but about finding something new in the process.