Autumn Landscape, 1937

Though the Precisionists are frequently identified by their use of architectural themes, Ault’s oeuvre also encompassed masterful still lifes and landscapes.  Painted in Woodstock in 1937, Autumn Landscape is a forceful work from Ault’s mature period, combining his Precisionist technique with a more softly modulated one.  A recurrent image in Ault’s work, a massive dead tree, is situated at the front of the composition and dominates it.  Painted with an intricacy that approaches the hyper real, the tree has an implied anthropomorphism and, despite its moribund state, a majestic presence.  It is surrounded by a living landscape at the height of autumn, painted with nuance and a bit of blurring, thus heightening the distinctiveness of the tree.  Ault’s handling of the paint and his rich, earthen tones give a pillowy lushness to the environment:  the green-to-russet ferns at foreground right, the four vertical arbor vitae behind them, and the varying greens and rust red-oranges of the maples and oaks in the distance and at left.  The gradations of palette in the landscape are masterfully subtle, as green blends into yellow and then into orange, deep red, and finally the dark violet of the distant mountains.