Sunset from Kilmacolm 1929

James McBey made this watercolor, Sunset from Kilmacolm, in 1919, and looking at it, I feel like he’s trying to catch something so fleeting. Imagine him there, quickly mixing washes of pink, yellow, and blue, trying to capture the way the light hits those distant hills, and the big sky. It feels like a memory, almost fading, doesn't it? He's probably thinking about other painters like Turner, chasing light and atmosphere. The paint is thin, almost transparent, which gives the whole scene a dreamlike quality. That long stroke of watery blue in the foreground – is it a path? A river? It guides your eye right into the heart of the landscape. Maybe he's thinking about how Constable talked about painting as a science. For me, painting is an ongoing conversation across time. Artists keep revisiting similar themes but with their own unique sensibilities. Each brushstroke holds a feeling, an intention, an echo of something seen and felt. It is not a recording, but something else.