Advancing Sea 1953

Milton Avery conjured this waterscape, Advancing Sea, with just a few moves of the brush and a limited palette. You can almost feel his hand gliding, searching for the right form. I imagine him squinting at the sea, trying to distill it to its simplest essence. What does water feel like? How does it move? The waves rendered as swooping arcs, the mass of the ocean reduced to a dark, brooding shape. It's like he’s trying to capture the memory of the sea, not the thing itself. That dark form in the middle isn't just water, it’s also a feeling. A sense of the sublime, maybe, or the unknown depths that lie beneath the surface. Other painters were also searching for this essence – think of the Abstract Expressionists, who were his contemporaries. But Avery does it with a quiet, understated poetry all his own. And that pale pink up top? What is that? Sky? Light? A dream? It's all part of the conversation, you know, the never-ending exchange between artists across time.