Sea 1962

Tove Jansson made this painting, called Sea, with oil on canvas. I like how the brushstrokes here are really loaded and juicy, almost sculptural in the way they pile up. It’s like Jansson is trying to catch the sea's movement, not just its look. The colors! Deep blues, blacks, and greens, but then little flecks of white and yellow pop up like the sun's glint on the waves. The texture is so alive; you can almost feel the roughness of the sea and the thickness of the paint. Look at the lower right corner, there's this patch of pure blue laid on so thick you could dive right in. It doesn’t blend; it just sits there, bold and unapologetic. Jansson’s a bit like that other painter of the sea, Winslow Homer, in that she captures something fundamental about the sea’s power and mystery. But her sea feels more personal somehow, less about grand drama and more about the feeling of being small in the face of something vast and unknowable.