Smart River (Alaska) 1945

A. Y. Jackson made this landscape, ‘Smart River (Alaska)’, most likely with oil on canvas, and probably in the studio rather than en plein air. I say this because there’s something about the careful placement of the shapes and colors, and the flattened perspective that suggests time and consideration. I can imagine Jackson looking out at the scene and trying to capture not just the likeness but the feeling of the Alaskan wilderness—the stillness, the quiet, and the vastness. It’s a study in contrasts—the cool blues of the mountain and river against the warm yellows and browns of the sky and land. It’s like he’s saying, hey, nature isn’t just one thing, it’s a whole bunch of things all at once. I like how the bare trees at either side frame the landscape, drawing our eye into the distance. Painters make paintings, sure, but they’re also in conversation with each other, and I can see Jackson looking back to artists such as Van Gogh and Cézanne, and forward to contemporaries like Lawren Harris.