Landscape with Church Tower c. 1915

Here's a landscape with a church tower made by John Wesley Cotton. It’s an etching—a print—so think about the delicate lines he made, maybe on a copper plate, and then the acid bath, the inking and wiping, and the pressure of the press! I can see Cotton layering warm yellows and oranges with cooler blues and greens, pulling out the forms of the trees, fields, and buildings. You can imagine him out there, responding to the scene but also inventing, finding the sweet spot between observation and abstraction. I wonder what he felt about those tall trees—they are so present, like silent guardians of the landscape. The little figures in the front are so humble and yet they give a sense of scale. It feels like a memory, or an echo of a dream. This kind of landscape connects Cotton to artists like Corot or even Whistler, who were all trying to capture a mood as much as a place. We are all in conversation with each other through our work, across time.