House Set in Wooded Landscape [verso] c. 1895 - 1900

Editor: Here we have John Marin’s watercolor, "House Set in Wooded Landscape," created sometime between 1895 and 1900. It’s so hazy and indistinct! It looks like a memory fading away. What catches your eye about it? Curator: I’m immediately drawn to the materiality of the piece. The watercolor medium itself, its affordability and portability, allowed Marin to work en plein air, directly responding to the landscape. This points to the democratization of art production. Were these materials easily available to all artists at the time? Editor: That’s an interesting question. I imagine mass production made them more accessible, but maybe not equally so for everyone. Curator: Exactly. Consider the social context – who had the leisure time and financial means to pursue plein air painting? Furthermore, how does the ‘impressionistic’ style affect our understanding of labor? Is Marin obscuring the labor involved in the making, and maintenance of both art, and rural spaces? Editor: That's a perspective I hadn't considered. I was just seeing the "impression," but you're right. He is depicting the result of labor, not the labor itself, almost making it disappear into the background. Curator: It encourages us to think about what is depicted and, more importantly, what *isn't* being depicted – the human stories, the social structures embedded within the landscape and the act of painting itself. How would he engage differently with, say, urban subjects? Editor: Thinking about the art in terms of what is shown versus not shown is making me rethink my perspective about what landscape is versus landscape art. Thank you! Curator: A great conversation. It always bears asking, who gets to portray what?