Spring (Montbarbin)

Shown at Stieglitz’s New York gallery in 1910, this delicate yet energetic work is one of several landscapes that Marin painted in the Seine-et-Marne region east of Paris. Set among lush rolling meadows, the distant village of Montbarbin was rendered by staining wet paper with pale washes of green-gray and pink. The artist used stronger washes to suggest the contours of rocks and boulders in the foreground, and rapid brushstrokes to indicate the movement of air and clouds. Marin completed this watercolor by dabbing shapes in a darker gray wash on the left with a crumpled rag, approximating the fluttering leaves of a small tree. These untethered blots seem to be borne aloft by the energy of buffeting breezes.