Hills and Trees 1943

Curator: Milton Avery's "Hills and Trees," made in 1943, captures a serene landscape using the simple yet effective medium of pencil on paper. It’s just such a sweet and fleeting expression of nature, almost as if the breeze itself was rendered on the page. Editor: Yes, there's an incredible lightness to it. A stark tonal range reveals almost frenetic scribbles, evoking movement and wind through the pencil marks; yet they solidify to communicate dimension. What’s your take on the open composition, so light in touch, almost airy? Curator: Oh, it’s the kind of drawing that makes you want to be outdoors! It suggests an expansive view, those skeletal trees in the foreground reaching out, and the looser markings for the distant hills give you that real sense of perspective. The way he uses those almost abstract scribbles adds such dynamism—I can practically feel the changing weather on my face. Editor: Indeed, this impression of dynamism extends to its internal logic, which eschews deep convention, to express the sensation more than depiction of form. It appears, quite frankly, rudimentary, in its attempt to formalize volume by varying gradients or intensities; the technique itself lacks a refined, skillful mode. Curator: Oh, I don’t know; Avery always struck me as the kind of artist who sees right through the formal to capture something deeply personal. It's like he's handing us a glimpse into his mind, not just showing us a landscape. Don't you find the deliberate lack of detail almost inviting? As though we, the viewers, get to fill in the gaps with our own experiences of similar vistas? Editor: Potentially, this simplicity enhances readability while allowing various modes of interpretation by diverse audiences, if that's what you suggest? It does highlight how such elemental techniques, even incomplete or unpolished in nature, generate affect... a kind of shared emotional resonance for us? Curator: Exactly. Like the soft scratchings on the paper become not just trees and hills but something like joy, memory... the way sunshine makes you squint a bit when you step outside, right? It might be just pencil on paper but somehow, it contains so much more. Editor: It certainly shows how little one actually requires to transform and produce strong imagery from modest tools; Avery seems to express, via gesture, with conviction and with few visual markers. Thanks for opening my perspective; this reminds me about the necessity of simplicity sometimes.