Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Venice 1912

Maurice Prendergast made this watercolor of the Campo Santa Maria Formosa in Venice, probably in the early 20th century. Look at those washes of cerulean blue that suggest both sky and water, and the bustling crowd rendered with quick flicks of color! I can almost feel the energy of the square as Prendergast translated it onto paper. I imagine him standing there, maybe a bit overwhelmed by the scene, dabbing at the paper, trying to catch the light, the movement, the atmosphere. He’s not aiming for a perfect representation. Rather, he uses the watercolor to capture a moment in time, a feeling of being there. His choice of watercolor gives the image a lightness, an airiness that oil paint couldn't quite achieve. The quick, gestural marks—particularly in the figures—remind me of Édouard Vuillard’s paintings of Parisian life. I think all painters are in conversation, across time and place, inspiring each other, trying to find new ways of seeing and expressing the world. Painting embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations, a kind of open-endedness that invites the viewer into the process of meaning-making.