Back of House 1943

Milton Avery made this sketch called 'Back of House' at some point in his career, probably with whatever pen or pencil was handy. It's all about the energy of the line, isn't it? The way he quickly captures a scene, not fussing over details but getting right to the feeling of a place. Look at how he uses simple lines to suggest the rocks, water, and figures. The texture is all in the variation of those marks, some dark and bold, others light and fleeting. See how he captures light with sparse hatches and squiggles. There’s something incredibly direct about it. It's like he’s thinking out loud on paper, leaving the bones of the image for us to flesh out. You can almost feel the breeze and hear the water just by looking at those squiggly lines near the bottom right. Avery seems to share something with the graphic directness of someone like Guston, even though their subjects might seem worlds apart. It's about stripping things down to their essence, using the simplest means to convey the most profound emotions, right? Art's an ongoing conversation; Avery just threw in a particularly elegant line.