RSW's Diary Comments

Heath Cottage Windows
You can see the west window in this picture. The
front facing window is south. The window you can
see, inside, through the south window is the west.

"Painted from west window of Pasture House in the early summer of 1947. Flat, horizontal pasture stretches in low foreground, with very dark small, symmetrical pine in left center, silhouetted against the horizon band of distant blue mountains crowned by rounded Greylock. A dramatic tangled mass of summer clouds, broken by small patches of blue tubes up the upper 2/3 of the canvas."

Remarks on the Heath Cottage Windows:

Every studio/study Woodward designed himself made certain he had light and views from at least three directions. In the picture to the right, Woodward is on the eastern side of the pasture cottage. The structure is a bit askew pointing slightly southeast toward the Buckland Hills. Through the front window you can see the "west window" from which he painted this painting on the same side as the garage. There is also a "north window" on the rear of the cottage from which he painted a couple of paintings as well.

Addendum:

We went a bit overboard in our analysis from September of 2022. We no longer believe this painting might have been painted earlier than the date give by Woodward. While he has gotten years wrong on other paintings in his diary, those were usually paintings made years before he started the diary. We will keep the copy from 2022 as it is but note we pulled back on this question. Our issue is directed more towards the painting by the same name just two years later with NO diary comment and other 1940 paintings with missing diary comments.

Heights of Heath #2

There are just somethings we cannot explain. How Woodward writes a painting diary entry on this painting but fails to mention that there is another painting of a different subject with the same name [see image to the left].

There is one explanation but it does not answer the question to any satisfaction. This painting was made in 1947, about six/seven years after he began the diary. However, Woodward discovered the Burnt Hill pasture in Heath sometime in the late 1920s. He buys the land (160 acres) in 1938 and has a cottage/studio built that was completed in 1940. It is very possible Woodward made it years before he began the painting diary and did not recall having used the name prior. Also, for a decade (1931 to 1941) Woodward used the word "heights" in at least 12 known paintings, and probably a handful of paintings we do not know.


So can we conclude that the Heights of Heath #2 painting was made between those years? We could but there is another issue... when you get to know Woodward's work well enough you can almost date them by the brush style used and Heights of Heath #2 has the look and feel of a late 1940 painting. This changes our perspective a bit and now we look at after 1947, like the Vose exhibit in 1949. (continued on Heights of Heath #2)