Coming Up the Reach, Stonington, Deer Isle 1928

John Marin made "Coming Up the Reach, Stonington, Deer Isle" with watercolor and charcoal on paper. He's got this great way of working on paper, using a light touch with both the charcoal and watercolor, and it feels like such a free and spontaneous process. Look at the way he's built up the image with these transparent washes of color. The blues and greens in the water feel so fluid, and the pinks in the sky give it this airy quality. There’s a sense of movement and energy in those marks, especially around the boat, with those bold charcoal lines and the way he layers the watercolor. It's like he's trying to capture the feeling of being out on the water, the wind in your face, the boat slicing through the waves. I'm reminded of Arthur Dove, with his interest in capturing the essence of a place or a feeling through abstract forms. Like Dove, Marin is embracing ambiguity and suggesting possibilities rather than offering fixed representations.