Landscape in Maine

The artist’s first year in Maine was his most productive to date, and he eagerly returned the following summer, staying near Small Point. He persisted in his conviction that it was always better to paint outdoors than in the studio. That summer he paid particular attention to trees, often abstracting their spiky, zigzag shapes into compositions that feel almost Asian in their spareness, while also inventing a system of personal marks that critics likened to hieroglyphs. This watercolor was painted in a single sitting over a cursory initial drawing in graphite.