Stonington Maine 1923

John Marin made this watercolor, Stonington Maine, with such light, airy strokes, you can almost feel the sea breeze. It’s like he’s not just painting a picture, but capturing a fleeting moment. I can imagine him standing there, squinting at the scene, brush dancing across the paper, trying to pin down the way the light hits those buildings, how the water shimmers. There's a loose, restless energy in his line; a kind of searching. The colors are watery and translucent. That scribble of blue up top – is it sky, or sea? Or both, bleeding into each other? He's playing with abstraction but holding onto the feeling of a place, a real place he saw with his own eyes. He's in conversation with the French Impressionists, especially Cezanne, but doing it with a uniquely American swagger. It’s a reminder that we’re all just borrowing and building on each other's ideas, trying to make something new and true.