Ship at Anchor 19th-20th century

Curator: This is Denman Waldo Ross's watercolor, simply titled "Ship at Anchor" from the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It's incredibly evocative, capturing a fleeting moment of quietude. The loose brushstrokes give the water this shimmering, almost restless quality. Curator: Ross was deeply interested in color theory; he even developed his own system. You can see his preoccupation with hue in how the blues and yellows interact here. Editor: It's almost scientific, yet it feels deeply personal. I imagine Ross standing there, sketchbook in hand, trying to capture the essence of the scene. Curator: And the way he leaves parts of the paper bare really adds to that feeling of spontaneity and immediacy, doesn't it? Editor: Absolutely. It's a reminder that even the most carefully constructed artistic theories can still yield works of great beauty and emotion. It makes you wonder what Ross was thinking about. Curator: Ultimately, it’s a picture, or maybe a painting of a feeling, that lingers in the mind long after you've seen it.