Bermuda No. 1, Tree and House 1917

Charles Demuth made "Bermuda No. 1, Tree and House" with watercolor. It's all about seeing the world in shapes, and how those shapes come together to make a place. You can almost feel Demuth feeling his way through the scene, letting the watercolor do its thing – blending, bleeding, creating soft edges, but the underlying structure is quite firm. I like how he breaks down the landscape into these facets, it reminds me of Cezanne. See how he's got the tree limbs framing the house, almost like an embrace? The colors are muted, like a faded memory. I can almost smell the salt air just looking at it. There’s this one spot, the way he rendered the leaves of the palm, so delicate, almost translucent, yet so firmly rooted in the composition. Arthur Dove did watercolors with a similar geometry to Demuth. These guys were not afraid of a bit of abstraction. For me, the best paintings invite you to wander, to get lost in the details, and to find your own way back, and that's exactly what Demuth does here.