River, Trees, and Church 1937

Donald Greason made this drawing of a River, Trees, and Church with what looks like a graphite pencil, and maybe some kind of wash. You can tell he’s interested in the layering of elements in the landscape: the trees in front of the buildings, in front of the sky. There’s a real flatness to the image which is really appealing. The values, the light and dark, are so close together, it’s like the whole image is breathing, quietly. Look at the way he uses the graphite in the trees, smudging and layering to create a kind of soft focus, but then the clean, hard lines of the buildings. It gives the whole thing a lovely contrast. It reminds me a little of the drawings of Fairfield Porter, but maybe with a more casual, off-hand approach. It feels very American, very humble, but also really beautiful in its simplicity. It reminds me that art is really about the way we see the world, and the way we translate that vision into marks on a page.