Pasture, Old Lyme 1906

Willard Metcalf made "Pasture, Old Lyme" with oil on canvas, and right away, the light and color remind me of making art outdoors. You get this sense of the process of how the painting was made. Look at the way Metcalf handled the paint. It’s not trying to hide itself! The brushstrokes are visible, especially in the foliage. The paint is light and airy. I love the way the blue of the sky is picked up in the shadows of the rocks, it creates this harmonic vibration of light. You can almost feel the breeze and hear the cows mooing. That big tree on the left is interesting, too. It’s solid, but also kind of lacy. Like the whole painting, it balances a sense of looking *at* something, and also seeing how it's made. Metcalf reminds me of Constable, with his interest in capturing the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere. Both are part of this ongoing dialogue about how we see the world and translate it onto canvas.