Tree on Shore

A landscape painting by Cummings of a colorful tree on the shore of Silver Lake in New Hampshire, where the Cummings family had a summer home. In the background is Mount Chocorua, one of the most frequent subjects of Cummings' artwork. The use of a bright and vivid palette is reminiscent of Matisse, Kandinsky, and the Fauvists, all of whom have been cited as influences on Cummings as an artist. Thematically and as a composition, this image also owes a debt to Cezanne, one of Cummings' great idols as a painter and an influence, as he said, on both his and other Modernist writers' poetry and fiction by virtue of his providing "a new way of seeing things." In Cummings' work one can almost see an echo of Cezanne, with Cummings' frequent and varied depictions of Mount Chocorua echoing Cezanne's repeated returns to Mont Saint-Victoire as a subject for his paintings. 8-3/4" x 11-1/2", oil on cardboard. Painted on the underside of the cover of a box of his typewriter paper. Undated. Edges slightly rough, and a few random water spots on the image; overall very good condition. No Binding. Very Good.