The Maine Coast

(C) 2020 Dale DiMauro

Since reading this book by Jordi Vigue, Great Masters of American Art, I have gained new appreciation for many of the Hudson River School painters. In particular. I admire the work of Alfred Thompson Bricher(1837-1908) who painted many coastal scenes of Maine. Some of his imagery comes to mind when I look back at this picture which I worked on last winter.

This is a study I did of the Maine coast, from a photograph I took. My thoughts keep coming back to this image. Like many other traveler's I don't know if I will be able to go to Maine this summer. That would be a first, for me as long as I can remember, summer in Maine, at some point, has been a family tradition.

The other thing about this image, is well, the image. The Maine coastline with it's rocky, erratic and undulating shoreline has such a strong element in the human psyche. The eye is drawn to where the land meets the sea. As a viewer the eye simply wants to follow the shoreline up to the horizon. And somewhere along the way one can smell the fresh fragrances from the life of the sea. By contrast, inland, we don't usually experience these qualities.

So much of capturing this landscape is getting the drawing right. It doesn't require much color. In fact, color will just compete with the quality of the light.