Low Tide, Revere Beach 1911

Maurice Prendergast made this watercolor, Low Tide, Revere Beach, with fluid brushstrokes and a palette of blues, whites, and sandy browns. Imagine him there, at the beach, trying to capture all these figures. It looks like he’s making decisions on the fly, shifting things around, trying to get it just right. I can almost feel the sun on my skin just looking at it. Prendergast's paint is thin and watery, which gives the picture this open, airy feeling, like a hot summer's day at the beach. The way he lays down these dabs and dashes of color, like musical notes on a page, they come together as a kind of shorthand for form. You know, it reminds me of Bonnard, but Prendergast has his own way of seeing. It’s like he’s trying to catch the fleeting moments, to get down on paper what it feels like to be there, in the moment. Ultimately, it is all about feeling. And that’s what makes painting so great – artists working and responding to one another across time, in this silent conversation.