The Ice Hole, Maine

By the early 20th century, the new art coming out the United States fused ideas about modern art from Europe with influences culled from America’s unique culture and scenery. During this period, many American artists began turning inward to explore the many different climates, cultures and peoples contained within the United States, seeking to cultivate a specifically American vision for modern art. Marsden Hartley was one of many of early 20th century American artists to search for new subject matter in remote, rural parts of the country. In 1908, he moved to an abandoned farm near Lovell, Maine, and produced a large series of experimental winter landscape scenes like The Ice Hole, Maine. In these paintings, Hartley sought not so much to capture the precise topography of the Maine coast, but rather the raw feeling of its wild and desolate terrain.