The Coming Storm 1901

Winslow Homer made "The Coming Storm" with watercolor paints, and I think he was really thinking through the process of painting. You know, how each wash of color affects the one before it. The colors are muted – blues, grays, and browns – but applied in such a way that they glow. Look at the way the blue of the water graduates from dark to light. Homer's brushwork is loose, almost like he’s trying to capture the feeling of the storm rather than a precise picture. And the paper itself becomes part of the painting. I’m particularly drawn to that lone tree on the right. Its branches are bent by the wind, as if dancing with the storm. There's this feeling that nothing is ever truly resolved. It reminds me a bit of John Singer Sargent's watercolors – that same sense of immediacy and light. Art isn't about answers; it's about possibilities.