Anna-Maria Island, Florida 1948

David Burliuk made this lovely watercolour painting of Anna-Maria Island in Florida, and what strikes me most is the way the sky dominates the composition, pushing everything else into its orbit. I imagine Burliuk standing en plein air, quickly capturing the fleeting atmospheric conditions, the humidity and the gathering storm. Watercolour can be such a capricious medium – you have to be fast, intuitive, and willing to let go of control. I particularly like the way he’s suggested the weight of the rain cloud. It has this kind of brooding presence. The palm trees on the left-hand side are rendered with this beautiful economy of line, and I like how their fronds seem to echo the shapes of the clouds above. Burliuk was part of the Russian avant-garde before he moved to the States, and you can see that sensibility in the way he abstracts the landscape, not trying to represent it exactly, but capturing the feeling of being there. It reminds me that artists are always absorbing and reworking ideas from one another. It's this continuous, generous exchange that keeps painting alive, inviting us to see the world anew.