River Bank c. 1920

William James Glackens made this painting, River Bank, with what looks like oil on canvas. You can almost see him there, in the long grass, squinting as he tries to capture the light dancing on the water. Imagine Glackens, his hand moving quickly, trying to keep up with the way the light shifts and changes. Look how he’s used these short, broken strokes of color to build up the textures of the foliage. It's like he’s not just painting what he sees, but how it feels to be there, in that moment. There’s a leaning tree in the middle with a branch that kind of droops over the water. I wonder if he felt a connection to that tree, seeing it struggling, reaching, like we all do. I bet he looked at other Impressionists but did it his own way. He was part of a long conversation between artists, all trying to figure out how to capture the world, or a feeling, on a flat surface.