Cape Split, Maine
<p>In this work, blue and pink lines hover above the horizon, indicating fair weather for both sailing and painting. Marin evoked the complexity of the surf with a wide range of paint applications: dry brushstrokes for the water’s texture; intervals of wet-into-wet; amorphous washes to suggest foreground rocks; pale blue tints over white paper for sea foam; and multiple shades of black, blue, and green to evoke depth and movement below the waves. He then used pencil to delineate the rock forms, applying watercolor over graphite and vice versa.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1941
- Dimensions
- 39.2 × 52.1 cm (15 7/16 × 20 9/16 in.); Mount: 55.3 × 73.2 cm (21 13/16 × 28 7/8 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- John Marin
Artist
Painting
John Marin was an American modernist painter and printmaker known for his dynamic watercolors and etchings of coastal landscapes, particularly Maine. Working primarily in watercolor from the 1910s onward, he developed a fractured, energetic visual language that synthesized Cubist fragmentation with direct observation of nature. His gestural brushwork and bold use of paper's white ground anticipated Abstract Expressionism while maintaining a strong sense of place and atmospheric condition. Marin spent decades based in Maine, where the rocky coastlines and maritime environment became the primary subject of his mature work.
Full artist profile →More
More by John Marin
Approaching Fog
1952 · Watercolor with blotting, wiping and traces of scraping, and with brush and black ink, graphite, fabricated charcoal, and touches of opaque watercolor on medium-weight, rough-textured, off-white wove paper (four edges trimmed)
Movement: Boats and Objects, Blue Gray Sea
1947 · Oil on canvas
Brooklyn Bridge - on the Bridge, No. 2
1944 · Etching
Movement: Sky and Grey Sea
1941 · Watercolor, charcoal, and pencil on paper
Circus Elephants
1941 · Watercolor with scraping and wiping, and with opaque watercolor, graphite and black crayon, on medium-weight, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Nudes in Sea
1940 · Watercolor with blotting, wiping, and scraping, and black crayon, with brown colored pencil, on heavyweight, moderately textured, ivory wove paper (all edges trimmed), in original frame
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- John Marin
- Year
- 1941
- Dimensions
- 39.2 × 52.1 cm (15 7/16 × 20 9/16 in.); Mount: 55.3 × 73.2 cm (21 13/16 × 28 7/8 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1941-131259
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified
Explore
More Watercolor with touches of blotting, and with graphite and black colored pencil, on lightweight (estimated), slightly textured, ivory wove paper (top, left and right edges trimmed), laid down on artists’ board faced with ivory wove paper, in original frame works →All works by John Marin →