The Cedar Hedge (Spring Breezes and Rains) Chestnut Hill, Boston, Massachusetts

Marsden Hartley, né Edmund Hartley, incorporated his step-mother's maiden name, Marsden, into his own in 1906, the year the then 29 year old declared himself an artist. He returned to Lewiston, Maine after an influential period spent in New York, studying under William Merritt Chase and immersing himself in the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose treatise Nature on transcendentalism appealed to Hartley's pre-existing interest in nature and spiritual truth. In the winter of 1907, when the present work was painted, Hartley moved to Boston. His neo-Impressionist treatment of the landscapes from this period demonstrate the influence of Giovanni Segantini, with whom Hartley was familiar. Hartley dropped Edmund from his name altogther in 1908, considered the birth of his mature style.