Vermont Landscape 1943

Milton Avery drew this Vermont landscape with ink on paper, likely en plein air. The quick, loose strokes, feel like he’s trying to capture not just the look, but the feeling of the place. You can almost feel the breeze rustling through the sparse trees. Look at the horizontal lines creating the middle-ground foliage, see how the ink bleeds slightly into the page, giving it a soft, almost hazy quality, like a memory. Then there's the decisive, almost scribbled marks that form the distant mountains, they’re so different from the foreground tree, which is defined with these long, flowing lines, and has a real sense of presence. Avery’s known for his color, of course, but this sketch shows how he could do so much with so little. Like Marsden Hartley, another master of the American landscape, he was able to see and express the essence of a place. It’s not just a picture, it’s an experience.