Seascape with Three Figures 

John Marin made this sketch, Seascape with Three Figures, with graphite on paper. Marin was working in the first half of the twentieth century, and the sketch gives us a sense of the casual leisure enjoyed by some Americans at that time. We see this, for instance, in the seated figures, who are possibly nude, and the nautical scene. Marin was working at a time of high modernist experiment, and the sketch demonstrates how a simplified and energetic technique can be used to capture a fleeting sense of place and time. To understand the image better, we might turn to sources on the history of leisure in the United States, but also the artist’s own writings about his work and the institutional structures that supported his production. Art history reminds us that art is made by individuals, but always in a specific social and cultural context.