Night in Stockholm 1923

Muirhead Bone made this moody watercolour, Night in Stockholm, on paper. Look at how the dark grey wash and thin, nervous lines construct a kind of fleeting vision. It reminds me that making art is a process of trying to capture a feeling more than a literal picture. The colour here is almost entirely muted tones of blue and gray, creating a somber, nocturnal feel. Notice how the texture of the paper is allowed to show through, giving the image an airy quality, like a memory. The reflections in the water are rendered with quick, broken strokes, and the dark foreground creates a sense of depth. There are tiny figures on the bank, but they are shrouded in darkness; I love that single pale vertical mark for the mast of a ship – it’s the key to the whole picture. It calls to mind Whistler's nocturnes, not so much in style but in their shared interest in atmosphere and the poetics of the urban landscape, and their emphasis on an ongoing conversation about how to create meaning and feeling with minimal means.