Approaching Storm 1920

Ernest Lawson's "Approaching Storm," at the Phillips Collection, is a canvas where landscape meets emotion through a tapestry of texture and color. The painting is structured around horizontal bands of land and sky, creating a sense of depth, while thick impasto strokes define the undulating terrain and the turbulent sky. The composition is bisected by a stream in the foreground, leading the eye towards a distant, softly lit structure, perhaps a farmhouse. Lawson uses a limited palette of greens, blues, and earthy tones, but their application is far from uniform. The varied strokes of paint capture a sense of atmospheric pressure, as the looming storm casts a palpable gloom. Lawson, influenced by Impressionism and later a member of "The Eight," was interested in the direct expression of the landscape's mood through paint. Note the expressive brushwork. Rather than depicting the scene with photorealism, Lawson conveys his subjective experience of nature, highlighting the transient effects of light and weather.