Near Margate - Evening

Near Margate - Evening by Henry Moore RA RWS, 1831-1895. Signed and dated 1870. Oil on canvas, 12.25 x 20.5 inches. Exhibited: Royal Society of British Artists, 1871, no 332. Courtesy of the Maas Gallery. Click on image to enlarge it.

According to the Maas Gallery site, “Henry Moore’s seascapes could be startlingly experimental. This one is painted thick and wet, in a very restricted palette, with the blue of the sea over a base layer of brown, the same shade of which is used for the sand, the fishing boats and the human figures alike, so that they merge into one another. The sails and one figure are tinged with light brown from the low sun. Creamy white has been scumbled into the blue of the sky for the clouds, or thinly dripped unmixed to make the crests of gentle waves; the blue of the water pooling on the beach is broken through to the brown. These idiosyncratic techniques evoke the coast at Margate in the evening, when the shadows lengthen into dark tones and the sky remains bright, reflected in the water. This picture was exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1871, along with three others.”

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Created 26 February 2018