38. John Wesley Cotton
(1869-1931)
Spring Landscape

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Cotton, Spring Landscape

Spring Landscape

Drawing in watercolor and gouache, 1904, on wove paper laid down to board, 305 x 470; a curved tear at the right whose repair could be improved; signed and dated in pencil. Cotton, who was born in Toronto, Canada, worked for many years in California , and was an exemplar of California Impressionism. One might cite this watercolor as a typical example of that artistic movement but for the date on it, 1904, which was well before he ever saw California. So the scene is probably somewhere in Canada -- which makes no difference, because the picture is not about location but about the season. Without a trace of the Victorian cottage garden with its multiple varieties of flowers, Cotton captures the bursting of Spring, the trees and low-lying plants virtually in movement with growth, the water and sky joining in. The memory, then, is not of a place but of a day.

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