Forest Clearing - January 1975

"Forest Clearing — January 1975" specifies both motif and date with a precision unusual within Hansen's titling, locating the print in the Pacific-Northwest mid-winter and within an open break in the otherwise dense Vashon woodland. A January clearing on the island would typically present bare deciduous branches, the persistent green of fir and cedar, sodden ground, and the low, diffuse light particular to that latitude. Compositionally, a clearing inverts the structural problem of the closed forest interior: instead of a packed lattice of trunks, the etcher works with a defined opening framed by surrounding trees, which concentrates plate tone and atmospheric effect in the central void. The dated title aligns the print with the diaristic pattern of "Forest 1974" and "Forest 1975," while the specificity of "January" suggests Hansen was working from direct observation of a particular site at a particular moment. Within the wider catalogue it represents the most explicitly seasonal of the mid-1970s forest etchings.