Jersey Hills 1923

Pop Hart made this etching, Jersey Hills, with dark brown ink on paper. Imagine Hart working on this plate; I bet he was scraping away at the metal, trying to get the darks just right. He's really digging into that foreground, isn't he? It's almost like he's carving out the shapes from the shadows. I can imagine Hart thinking, "How can I capture the feeling of this place?" Maybe he was thinking about how the light hits those hills in the distance, or the way the buildings huddle together in the landscape. Hart's work reminds me of other artists who were trying to capture the everyday, like the Ashcan School painters. They were all part of this big conversation about what it means to be an American artist. Each adding their own voice to the mix. It's like we're all talking to each other across time, you know? Trying to figure things out, one painting at a time.