May Day 1903

Maurice Prendergast painted this small watercolour, May Day, on paper. It captures a scene, maybe a memory, of children dancing around a maypole. The painting has a delicate feel to it, doesn’t it? Prendergast builds the image up using loose washes of colour. Look at the thin layers of green that bleed into each other in the foreground. It’s like he’s trying to catch the feeling of a day, not just depict a scene. The marks aren’t laboured over, they’re immediate, like sketches. This gives the whole piece a sense of movement and spontaneity. Take a look at the way he's suggested the figures, just a dab here, a brushstroke there. See the child in the pink dress near the centre, how the dress seems to dissolve into the green of the field? Like Vuillard, Prendergast had a knack for capturing fleeting moments with just the simplest of means. Both artists remind us that painting is as much about feeling as it is about seeing. It’s about the process of making and remaking the world, one brushstroke at a time.