Gloucester Park 1923

Maurice Prendergast made this watercolor, Gloucester Park, sometime around the turn of the last century. Look at those brushstrokes, so free and alive! I can just imagine Prendergast’s hand moving quickly, trying to capture a fleeting impression of light and color. I love how he uses these small dabs of paint to create a sense of movement and energy, like the scene is constantly shifting before your eyes. The way he layers the colors—that mix of blues, greens, pinks, and purples—creates this luminous effect, as if the whole scene is glowing from within. He’s part of a larger movement that includes Bonnard and Vuillard, these are all painters that are really thinking hard about pattern. Those figures in the park, with their bright dresses and hats, it’s all so joyful! But there’s something else too, a kind of melancholy, like he’s aware that these moments of beauty are fleeting, that they’ll soon be gone. That tension, between joy and melancholy, is what makes the painting so compelling. I like the push and pull.