Vermont Landscape 1943

Milton Avery made this pen and ink drawing, Vermont Landscape, probably en plein air, directly from observation. Look at those gestural marks; they are not overworked at all! I'm imagining Avery perched on a hillside, sketchbook in hand, quickly capturing the scene before him. What was it like to be Avery, working outdoors, trying to capture the essence of a place? There’s a tall, elegant tree on the left, its bare branches reaching up and across. Then, the horizon with a line of mountains in the distance, described with such simple lines. It's really the immediacy of Avery’s marks that make this landscape sing. Every stroke feels purposeful, full of feeling and intention. His drawings, like his paintings, explore the relationship between color, form, and space, but here it's just reduced to line and tone! Think of the work of Henri Matisse or even some of David Hockney's landscapes. Artists are always in dialogue, aren’t they? Responding to each other's ideas across time.