Arizona

Augusta Payne Rathbone

A window onto a spring day in the high desert provides a moment of cheerful solitude in Rathbone’s “Arizona.” This is likely the Santa Rita Mountain Range, with its collection of peaks that, from a distance, appear to slope gently into an unassuming gathering. Here, they are situated just beyond a green valley, possibly an irrigated cattle range. Seen in a crevice of the closest foothills is the continuation of spring’s greenery, making its way upward.

Rathbone employs the water souluable medium of gouache using rich, jewel tones and keeps the objects in the composition to an absolute minimum, allowing just enough information to capture the feeling of passing through an unencumbered landscape, the warm spring air one’s only companion.