Gulls and Spray 1942

Eva Auld Watson made this print, Gulls and Spray, dimensions roughly 9 x 9 inches, out of what looks like woodblock. The thing that grabs me here is how she uses the blocks to create this kind of flat, patterned surface. It's not about depth, it's about the dance of shapes. Like the way she layers the greens and blues to suggest the ocean, or how the gulls are almost stenciled in, frozen in mid-flight. I’m drawn to the lower corner where the wave hits the rocks. The white spray is captured so wonderfully, so fleeting. I can almost smell the salty air. Watson wasn't trying to capture a realistic scene, but something more like a feeling, an essence. It reminds me a little of Hiroshige, but with a more modern, almost folksy sensibility. It's like she's saying, "Hey, nature is beautiful, but art is about how we see it, how we feel it, not just copying what's there." The kind of art that reminds us that seeing is always a process, a way of thinking and feeling.