Smart River (Alaska) 1945

A.Y. Jackson made "Smart River, Alaska" with what looks like confident strokes and a bold, limited palette. The colours feel both arbitrary and perfect, which is often the case when the process has room to breathe. There's something very satisfying about the way Jackson balances representation and abstraction. The cool blues and greens of the water contrast with the warm yellows of the sky, but he simplifies the landscape to basic shapes and lines. Take the mountain: it's just a big blue form, but with enough detail to still feel mountainous. I love how the stark black trees frame the scene. They create a screen which draws our eye into the middle ground. The textures are pretty smooth, which tells me this might be a print or a painting on a very smooth surface. It reminds me a little of some of the early 20th-century printmakers like the German Expressionists, who also played with simplified forms and strong colours. Art's a conversation, right? Jackson seemed to understand that well.