Seascape—Fishing Boats by the Shore 1875

Curator: Soaked, somehow, just soaked! You can practically taste the salt air coming off this work, “Seascape—Fishing Boats by the Shore” by Henry Pember Smith, painted around 1875. Editor: It feels melancholy. Even in a black and white image, I sense that grey, heavy atmosphere that clings to the coast when a storm’s just passed, or is about to break. I notice the figures pulling the boat, what do you make of that interaction? Curator: I read their effort, you know? This wasn’t pleasure boating, these were working people coaxing a livelihood from an often-unforgiving sea. Notice how low the boats are riding in the water, presumably loaded with fish for processing? And consider the plein-air style that gives it this…immediacy. Editor: That relationship to labor and nature’s force, and how closely it intertwined with the fishermen, resonates with me here. These boats—likely locally built using available materials, propelled only by wind, reliant upon local expertise. This entire system is human scaled, built from a deep community expertise. Curator: Absolutely. It also pulls me toward that feeling of ephemerality, right? That constant flux and flow of the ocean, Smith captures this… these fishermen wrestling with its fleeting abundance. A kind of beauty within precarity, maybe? Editor: Perhaps so, if we accept a beautified interpretation of hard physical toil. What might be edifying to explore, are the local economic conditions in play at that specific moment. Were these individuals paid a just wage? How was that labor seen, not in terms of sublime effort, but rather a basic material exchange for survival? Curator: That adds another, vital layer, doesn’t it? It complicates the romance a little bit, injects it with a necessary dose of reality. Thinking about where those fish would eventually land, the hands they passed through, the tables they ended up on… Editor: Right. What initially seems a quiet seascape reveals a whole network of labor and distribution. Considering such an interpretation pulls art away from only an aesthetic appreciation, but more into one which acknowledges material reality. Curator: It makes me reconsider those initially romantic notions through a social lens. What a richer experience! Editor: Precisely! Another layer peeled back to view.