Near Salmon Hole 1943

Milton Avery made this drawing, Near Salmon Hole, with pen on paper, and you can almost hear the scratching of the nib against the page, can’t you? It’s so alive, this drawing, it looks like he made it right there, on the spot. Look at the scribble, scribble, scribble of the trees, contrasted with the calm, still horizontals of the water. What a wonderful way to capture how different the textures are in a landscape. This isn't trying to be a perfect representation, it is more like shorthand; the artist finding the simplest way to record what's in front of him. I'm really drawn to how Avery uses line to suggest depth here. The foreground is made up of simple shapes and distinct marks, but the background of the drawing dissolves into a sea of scribbles and tangled lines. This gives the whole piece a sense of receding into the distance. You could compare it to Guston's late drawings, there is a similar sense of finding the truth in the most simple mark. For me, art is a conversation, and everyone has their own way of saying things, their own unique voice.