Trees Against the Hills 1943

Milton Avery made this pencil sketch, Trees Against the Hills, in what feels like one long, continuous breath. It's all about process, a dance of the hand and eye across the page. Look at the mountains in the background, rendered with quick, light strokes, contrasting with the darker, more defined trees. You can almost feel the graphite on the paper, the softness, the way it smudges under pressure. See how the trees on the right are just these scribbled masses, a jumble of lines that somehow coalesce into leafy forms. It’s like Avery is saying, "Here's a tree, but also, here's the act of drawing a tree." I see a conversation happening between this sketch and the work of someone like Cy Twombly, that same love of the raw, unmediated mark, the embrace of imperfection. Avery knew that art wasn't about perfect representation, it was about the energy, the feeling, the messy, beautiful process of seeing and making.