Gray Day on the Lagoon (A Passenger Boat — Venice) 1913

William Merritt Chase made this atmospheric painting of Venice with oils on panel, and I can almost feel the dampness in the air! Look at the strokes of blues and grays, laid down to create a dreamy sky. I wonder if Chase was thinking about the light—the way it hits the water and makes everything feel a little blurry. Maybe he was trying to capture a feeling, a mood, more than a picture-perfect view. See how he uses short, choppy strokes to create the water? You can almost feel the boat rocking gently. There’s a real sense of immediacy in his application of the paint, with the thick texture bringing the whole scene to life. It reminds me of Whistler and those tonalist painters, all working in a similar vein, each influencing the other, as art always does, building on the past to create something new. What do you think? Does it make you want to grab a brush and try to capture your own gray day?