Aloft 1929

Arthur Briscoe made this watercolor, Aloft, sometime in his life, and you can really see the hand of the artist in the making of it. I mean, the marks are so immediate. The limited palette creates an atmosphere, it feels almost monochromatic, except with this warm, naturalistic range of browns and grays, that gives it a breezy feeling. What’s really interesting is the treatment of the rigging - the way Briscoe uses the thin dark lines to create a kind of web, a network, which is almost abstract. It makes you think about line and the way line can create tone as much as form. It reminds me a little bit of some of Winslow Homer’s watercolors, particularly the way he captured the light and the drama of the sea. It’s like looking at a moment frozen in time.