A Copse, Evening 1918

A.Y. Jackson made "A Copse, Evening" with oil paint, but I don’t know when! The earthy palette of browns and greens, laid down with visible brushstrokes, suggests a landscape undergoing some kind of transformation, maybe even trauma. Look at how Jackson builds up the texture of the earth. You can almost feel the grit and density of the soil. See that ladder, leading to the trenches? The paint is applied so thickly there, it gives the work a sculptural feel. The sky is almost the opposite, with long bands of light breaking through an otherwise muddy scene. These rays of light help to pull you into the picture, but they also act as a barrier, preventing you from fully immersing yourself in this devastated land. Jackson was part of the Group of Seven, known for their depictions of the Canadian wilderness. But this painting makes me think more of artists like Philip Guston, who embraced the materiality of paint to explore difficult and complex subjects. Art is never really finished anyway, it just keeps changing as it goes along.