At the Beach 1993

Maria Bozoky made this watercolor, "At the Beach", sometime in the 20th century, and you can tell that she was really interested in seeing how much she could get out of the fluidity of her materials. It's almost like the paint itself is doing the work. There’s such an economy of means at play here: thin washes that bleed into each other with just a few, dark outlines to bring out the forms. Look at how she renders the figure’s dress, which is almost abstract. Dark purples, blues and blacks, built up in vertical strokes, somehow give the impression of a heavy fabric, even though the paint is so thin and transparent. I think of artists like Raoul Dufy when I look at this piece. Both were interested in depicting the pleasures of modern life, and both were committed to the idea that art should be a space for experimentation, and for seeing the world in new and unexpected ways.