April Snow, Salem 1907

Maurice Prendergast made this watercolor, "April Snow, Salem," at an undetermined date, and its energetic looseness, with the blotty touches of pigment, makes me think about how painting is really just a way of feeling things out. Look at the way he layers blues and greens to make the water, and then repeats those colors in the figures in the foreground. It's all about echoes and rhymes! See how he's not really interested in clear outlines? Everything sort of bleeds into everything else. It's like he's saying, hey, life is messy, and that's okay. I’m drawn to the tiny dogs in the lower right – they feel so alive, even though they're just a few brushstrokes. Prendergast worked in a way that anticipates the Fauves – like Matisse – but with a more down-to-earth, American sensibility. He reminds us that art isn't about perfection, it's about capturing a moment, an impression, a feeling. Isn't that lovely?