Rendering Water

Johann Reger
War Galleys Advancing
1496
woodcut and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ignaz Raffalt
Boat Trip after the Rain
1849
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Albert Pinkham Ryder
Homeward Bound
ca. 1883-84
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Georges Seurat
Study of the Seine from La Grande Jatte
1888
oil on panel
Musée Fin-de-Siècle, Brussels

Arthur Rackham
In the Austrian Tyrol
1901
watercolor on paper
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Antoine Ponchin
Houses on the Water at Martigues
ca. 1905
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes

Tom Thomson
A Northern Lake
1914
oil on panel
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Donna Schuster
Garden Reflections
ca. 1925
oil on canvas
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Williams, Brown & Earle (Philadelphia)
Garden Fountain, Château de Courances
1936
hand-colored lantern slide
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Angelo Pinto
Icarus
ca. 1944
painted glass
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Arthur Tress
Boy Under Bridge, Queens N.Y.
1970
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Michaele Vollbracht (designer)
Shopping Bag from Bloomingdale's, New York
ca. 1978
screenprint on paper bag
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Joanne Tod
Chapeau Entaillé
1989
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Hiroshi Sugimoto
Tasman Sea, Ngarupupu
1990
gelatin silver print
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Ed Pien
Pond #6
1993
oil on canvas
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Jack Stuppin
Window Rock
1995
acrylic on canvas
San Jose Museum of Art, California

Lucas Samaras
Conflict 23
2003
inkjet print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Large Bad Picture

Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or

some northerly harbor of Labrador,

before he became a schoolteacher

a great uncle painted a big picture.

Receding for miles on either side

into a flushed, still sky

are overhanging pale blue cliffs

hundreds of feet high,

their bases fretted by little arches,

the entrance to caves

running in along the level of a bay

masked by perfect waves.

On the middle of that quiet floor

sits a fleet of small black ships,

square-rigged, sails furled, motionless, 

their spars like burnt match-sticks.

And high above them, over the tall cliffs'

semi-translucent ranks,

are scribbled hundreds of fine black birds

hanging in n's in banks.

One can hear their crying, crying,

the only sound there is

except for occasional sighing

as a large aquatic animal breathes.

In the pink light

the small red sun goes rolling, rolling,

round and round and round at the same height

in perpetual sunset, comprehensive, consoling,

while the ships consider it.

Apparently they have reached their destination.

It would be hard to say what brought them there,

commerce or contemplation.

– Elizabeth Bishop (1946)

Rendering Water

Meindert Hobbema
Water Mill
1664
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

John Hoppner
Castle above Moonlit Sea
before 1810
drawing
British Museum

Joseph Légaré
Montmorency Falls in Winter
1850
oil on board
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Winslow Homer
Boys in a Dory
1880
watercolor on paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Georges Lacombe
Vorhor, The Green Wave
ca. 1896-97
tempera on canvas
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Frank Hurley
Haunt of the Wild Duck
1914
carbon print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Francis Orville Libby
Niagara Falls, rushing from Left
ca. 1920
gum bichromate print
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Edward John Hughes
Beach at Savary Island, British Columbia
1952
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Hans Hofmann
Oceanic
1958
oil on canvas
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

David Hockney
Inland Sea, Japan
1971
crayon on paper
Art Institute of Chicago

George Krause
India
1972
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Sheila Hicks
Steichen's Pond
1995
colored paper and cotton thread
Art Institue of Chicago

Siri Kivilinna
Reflections on Lake Immeln, Sweden
1995
watercolor on paper
British Museum

Katherine Knight
Dock
2001
gelatin silver print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Cyril Hirtle
Untitled (The Big Fish)
before 2003
watercolor and ink on board
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Misty Keasler
Magic Mountain Payatas Garbage Dump, Manila, Philippines
2006
inkjet print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Doron Langberg
Bather
2021
oil on linen
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

At the Fishhouses

Although it is a cold evening,

down by one of the fishhouses

an old man sits netting,

his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,

a dark purple-brown,

and his shuttle worn and polished.

The air smells so strong of codfish

it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water.

The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs

and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up

to storerooms in the gables

for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.

All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,

swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,

is opaque, but the silver of the benches,

the lobster pots, and masts, scattered

among the wild jagged rocks,

is of an apparent translucence

like the small old buildings with an emerald moss

growing on their shoreward walls. 

The big fish tubs are completely lined

with layers of beautiful herring scales

and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered

with creamy iridescent coats of mail,

with small iridescent flies crawling on them.

Up on the little slope behind the houses,

set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,

is an ancient wooden capstan,

cracked, with two long bleached handles

and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,

where the ironwork has rusted.

The old man accepts a Lucky Strike.

He was a friend of my grandfather.

We talk of the decline of the population

and of codfish and herring

while he waits for a herring boat to come in.

There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.

He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,

from unnumbered fish with that black old knife,

the blade of which is almost worn away.

Down at the water's edge, at the place

where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp

descending into the water, thin silver

tree trunks are laid horizontally

across the gray stones, down and down

at intervals of four or five feet.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,

element bearable to no mortal,

to fish and to seals  . . .  One seal particularly

I have seen here evening after evening.

He was curious about me. He was interested in music;

like me a believer in total immersion,

so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.

I also sang, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."

He stood up in the water and regarded me

steadily, moving his head a little.

Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge

almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug

as if it were against his better judgment.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,

the clear gray icy water  . . .  Back, behind us,

the dignified tall firs begin.

Bluish, associating with their shadows,

a million Christmas trees stand

waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended

above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.

I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,

slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,

icily free above the stones,

above the stones and then the world.

If you should slip your hand in,

your wrist would ache immediately,

your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn

as if the water were a transmutation of fire

that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.

If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,

then briny, then surely burn your tongue.

It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:

dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,

drawn from the cold hard mouth

of the world, derived from the rocky breasts

forever, flowing and drawn, and since

our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown. 

– Elizabeth Bishop (1947) 

Rendering Water

Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi)
Baptism of Christ
ca. 1520-25
oil on panel
Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama

Michele Greco after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Naval Battle in Antiquity
ca. 1560
etching and engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Jan van Goyen
A Calm
ca. 1646-50
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin
The Seine at Charenton
(black factory smoke as a delightful contrast against white clouds)
1874
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Thomas Eakins
Susan Macdowell with the Crowell children in Avondale, Pennsylvania
1883
albumen silver print
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Alexander Henderson
Victoria Rink
before 1884
albumen silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Peter Henry Emerson
Gathering Water Lilies
1886
platinum print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Peter Henry Emerson
Setting the Bow Net
1886
platinum print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Pietro Fragiacomo
Veduta di Venezia
ca. 1890
oil on canvas
(sold at Christie's London, 2020)
private collection

Emily K. Herron
Untitled
before 1893
cyanotype
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Spencer Gore
The Pool, Panshanger Park
1908
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Birge Harrison
A Puff of Steam
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Emanuel Phillips Fox
The Ferry
ca. 1910-11
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Childe Hassam
The South Ledges, Appledore
1913
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Spencer Gore
Landscape with Pond
1913
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Elioth Gruner
Rolling Hills, Yass
1929
oil on canvas
private collection

Donald Deskey
Design for Bathmat, Rockefeller Apartment, New York
ca. 1929-31
gouache on paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Insomnia

The moon in the bureau mirror

looks out a million miles

(and perhaps with pride, at herself,

but she never, never smiles)

far and away beyond sleep, or

perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,

she'd tell it to go to hell,

and she'd find a body of water,

or a mirror, on which to dwell.

So wrap up care in a cobweb

and drop it down the well

into that world inverted

where left is always right,

where the shadows are really body,

where we stay awake all night,

where the heavens are shallow as the sea

is now deep, and you love me.

– Elizabeth Bishop (1951)