By Salmon Hole 1943

Milton Avery’s "By Salmon Hole" is a graphite drawing on paper, presenting a landscape imbued with a sense of quiet observation. Notice the composition, where the trees on the left create a screen that leads the eye towards the more loosely defined background, a hill rendered with scribbled marks. Avery uses a limited range of tonal values, creating a flattened perspective. This simplification is key: it moves the scene away from naturalism and towards a more abstract representation of form. The hatching and cross-hatching techniques create texture and volume, but also serve to flatten the space, collapsing foreground and background. The structure of the drawing—its focus on line and form over detail—pushes the viewer to consider the essential elements of the landscape. Avery subtly destabilizes traditional landscape painting, focusing not on a picturesque view, but on the very act of seeing and representing. This piece is less about a specific place and more about how we perceive and translate our environment onto paper.