Road to Salmon Hole 1943

Milton Avery's ink drawing, Road to Salmon Hole, captures a landscape distilled to its most fundamental elements. Notice the sparse, almost calligraphic strokes. The lines depicting trees and foliage are reminiscent of ancient Chinese landscape paintings, where nature is evoked with minimal yet evocative marks. But here, the landscape appears almost as a psychological space, a terrain of the mind. The road, a recurring symbol in art and literature, invites us on a journey—perhaps a journey inward. We are confronted with a duality: the external world of nature and the internal landscape of human emotion. The rhythmic patterns and the stark simplicity engage us on a deeper, subconscious level. It is as if Avery taps into a collective memory, a shared human experience of nature. The motif of the road, with its promise of passage, continues its cyclical journey through art history.