Cape Split, Sea 1945

John Marin made this watercolor painting titled "Cape Split, Sea." The colors are muted grays and blues. Look at those brushstrokes—so quick and gestural. I can almost see Marin standing there, squinting at the scene, dabbing and swiping the paint across the paper, trying to capture the feeling of the sea. I love how the water and the sky kind of merge, blurring the line between the real and the abstract. There’s a dynamic energy in those marks, especially in the lower section. I wonder if Marin was thinking about the force of nature, the way the water crashes against the rocks, the constant push and pull. I mean, it's like he's not just painting what he sees but also what he feels, you know? Marin, like a lot of painters, was in conversation with the world and with other artists, trying to figure out how to make sense of things through paint.