Ye Old Dutch Church, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 1951

John Marin made this drawing of the Old Dutch Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, with graphite. It's like a quick sketch, a fleeting impression captured with a flurry of lines. You can almost feel his hand moving across the paper, searching for the essence of the scene. The marks are so immediate, so raw. He's not trying to create a perfect representation; instead, he is building a structure with hatched marks. The trees are just suggestions, lines that evoke their spindly forms. Look at how he uses short, choppy strokes to define the architecture, giving it a sense of solidity but also a kind of ethereal lightness. I'm drawn to the way the ground seems to tilt upwards, defying perspective in a playful way. Marin reminds me a bit of Marsden Hartley in his use of gesture, but he is a bit more raw, a bit less... precious. Art, like any good conversation, keeps evolving.