ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Harold Weston was a prominent twentieth-century modernist painter whose work experimented with realism, expressionism, and abstractionism. Weston lived most of his life in the Adirondacks and is known to have craved a more raw, intimate relationship with nature. Despite the aftereffects from a bout of polio when he was seventeen, he regularly summited mountains which provided him with much of his creative inspiration.

His best-known works are his expressionist landscape paintings which he produced during his time in the Adirondacks’ Keene Valley. Weston’s works emit an ethereal, almost transcendental portrayal of nature. In this case, beams of light radiate from the glowing peak of Mount Haystack. The painting’s extreme contrast and exaggerated curvature emphasize the divine grandeur which characterizes much of Weston’s work from this period.

The painting is comprised of a dark, unpolished foreground which transitions abruptly into a snowy valley set against a glowing tree line and a backdrop of an imposing mountain range. The inclusion of two focal points, the dead tree and the summit of Mount Haystack, creates an intriguing juxtaposition. It seems to represent the dichotomy between life and death and possibly comment on humans’ perception of the natural world. Unlike the ultra-realist works associated with the Hudson River School, Weston achieves this effect through a far more expressionistic style which experiments freely with light, color, and definition.

Though a close inspection of Haystack would reveal a seemingly slapdash execution, the impression of movement can certainly be felt at a distance. Critic Lewis Mumford identified the “touch of almost religious conviction” present within Weston’s work. This spiritual interpretation is typified by Weston’s passionate works of romantic expressionism. His landscapes and nudes seem to blur together into a representation of man’s interconnectivity with nature and God by extension. Haystack – Winter serves as an excellent example of this notion as it transmits a clear reverence for the beauty, power, and Elysian properties of the Adirondack wilds.
– Emerson M. Brott ’26

 

Harold Weston
Haystack – Winter, 1922
Oil on canvas
Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
SLU 70.29

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