Shinnecock Hills, Peconic Bay 1902

William Merritt Chase daubed this landscape, Shinnecock Hills, Peconic Bay, with oil on canvas; the green swells and recedes from the shore in broad strokes. You can almost feel the breeze coming off the water. I imagine Chase standing there, squinting, trying to capture the light just so. Did he struggle with the foreground, those scraggly bushes? I do that all the time. The paint is applied in layers, thick in some places, thin in others, creating a textured surface that shimmers. See how he used short, broken strokes to suggest the movement of the grass and leaves? It's like he's trying to capture a fleeting moment in time. I can't help thinking about Monet and the other Impressionists when I look at this. They were all trying to find new ways of seeing and representing the world. Painting is like a conversation, a dialogue between artists across time. We’re all just trying to figure things out, one brushstroke at a time.