Newfound Lake 1940

Donald Carlisle Greason made this drawing, Newfound Lake, with ink and graphite on paper. The figures, sparsely drawn, are embedded in the landscape, and seem to be at one with nature. Greason was born in Wilton, New Hampshire, and spent his career in the US, so it is probable this work was made there. The New England Transcendentalist movement had promoted a belief in the inherent goodness of people and nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of its leading figures, promoted self-reliance and individualism in essays such as Nature, published in 1836. Perhaps Greason’s drawing echoes these transcendentalist beliefs, showing individual figures in harmony with their natural environment. To understand such references more fully, we need to research the history of art in America, to read the writings of people such as Emerson, and to think about the social and cultural contexts that shaped artistic production at this time. Only then can we attempt an interpretation of an artwork like this.