Green and Brown, Boston Corners, 1917 by David Brown Milne

Provenance:
Douglas Duncan, Picture Loan Society, circa 1962
Private Collection, Whitehorse, Yukon

Literature:
David Milne Jr. and David P. Silcox, "David B. Milne: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Volume 1: 1882-1928", Toronto, 1998, listed and reproduced page 182, no. 107.88
Katharine Lochnan, "David Milne Watercolours: Painting Toward the Light", Toronto, 2005, pages 44, 53
Sarah Milroy and Ian A.C. Dejardin, "David Milne: Modern Painting", London, 2018, pages 17-22

"Green and Brown, Boston Corners" was painted shortly after David Milne and his wife Patsy moved to the small village of Boston Corners, New York in 1917. The artist grew tired of New York City, and sought a new location that was a reasonable distance from the city, suitable for painting, and, as Milne remarked, “preferably with hills to sit on while painting other hills.” The plan was to paint full-time while undertaking freelance commercial work. However, Milne ended up finding it very difficult to find clients in a town with a population of 96, and dedicated most of his time to painting. Art historian Ian Dejardin writes that “Boston Corners was to inspire some of his most distinctive works, particularly the view over the valley to the hills beyond, the foreground and middle ground marked by strings of trees and buildings. For Canadians, these are among his most iconic paintings.”

For the eighteen months following their move, Milne found all of his watercolour subjects within a few miles of his house. They were painted "en plein air", often with a graphite sketch beneath the pigment, and Milne claimed not to alter them once they were done. He painted many pictures of the same subjects; they are both variations on a theme and an obsessive search for what he considered perfection. Milne wrote of the Boston Corners years: “Painting subjects were scattered all over the place but rarely were more than two miles away. All were painted on the spot, and then, good or bad, left alone; no attempt was made to develop or change or repaint after the original painting was done. [...] The radius of my painting was determined by time, load and frame of mind. If my attention hadn’t escaped from the round of day by day events and become fixed on painting subjects and painting methods within the leisurely two-mile walk, it wasn’t apt to that day.”

"Green and Brown, Boston Corners" illustrates the flat, pattern-like quality Milne admired in Monet and incorporated into his rural American scenes. The flattened perspective and decorative paint application on bare paper recall the fragmented landscapes of Cézanne, whose work he also admired in New York City. The watercolour is intricately and deliberately composed, while simultaneously loose and spontaneous in its line and contours. Milne’s watercolour method consisted of painting the black outlines of each form, filling some in with colour applied directly to the paper, and then adding water to the rolling hills in the background to create a soft, blended appearance.

"Green and Brown, Boston Corners" exemplifies Milne’s strong predilection for line that was given increased prominence during his early years in Boston Corners.