Wooded Landscape 1943

Curator: This pen and pencil drawing, titled "Wooded Landscape," was created by Milton Avery in 1943. What's your immediate take? Editor: Stark. I feel a distinct absence despite the fullness of the scene. It’s interesting to consider how a landscape can evoke feelings of isolation. Curator: The apparent simplicity in his style invites layered readings. You notice how Avery reduces forms to their essential lines and shapes. In this drawing, for instance, observe the way trees are rendered with simple vertical lines, clustered together but still separate. This affects the interpretation of this symbolic “wooded landscape”. Editor: And it makes me wonder, what was Avery conveying about the American landscape during wartime? 1943... was it about loss, uncertainty, resilience, or the endurance of nature amidst chaos? What narratives of displacement or resistance were resonating? Curator: Landscape art can, in effect, be a projection of those larger social anxieties and, furthermore, societal introspection. Avery's sketch embodies the universal symbolism of the forest as a space of transformation and hidden truths. Forests in many traditions function as a space apart from civilization and the rules of society; an intermediary to something "other." Editor: Yes! That intermediary role – that's potent. Looking at it now, there is a simultaneous invitation and a warning. Perhaps it echoes concerns about a changing America as WWII continued and questions about returning veterans integrating into civil society emerged in political discourse. There is so much that a seemingly simple work of landscape art may imply. Curator: Agreed. And now as our understanding of natural ecosystems evolves to focus on preservation, Avery’s “Wooded Landscape” is even more evocative in light of global political crises that affect resources and land ownership. Editor: It feels as if his deceptively minimalist drawing contains an abundance. I walk away questioning what symbols were present, what symbols now mean. Curator: And I, about what they always have meant. Thanks.