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Meindert Hobbema
Water Mill
1664
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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John Hoppner
Castle above Moonlit Sea
before 1810
drawing
British Museum |
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Joseph Légaré
Montmorency Falls in Winter
1850
oil on board
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
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Winslow Homer
Boys in a Dory
1880
watercolor on paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
-The-Green-Wave-c1896-97-tempera-on-canvas-Indianapolis-Museum-of-Art.jpg) |
Georges Lacombe
Vorhor, The Green Wave
ca. 1896-97
tempera on canvas
Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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Frank Hurley
Haunt of the Wild Duck
1914
carbon print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
-Rushing-from-Left-c1920-gum-bichromate-print-Portland-Museum-of-Art-Maine.jpg) |
Francis Orville Libby
Niagara Falls, rushing from Left
ca. 1920
gum bichromate print
Portland Museum of Art, Maine |
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Edward John Hughes
Beach at Savary Island, British Columbia
1952
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
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Hans Hofmann
Oceanic
1958
oil on canvas
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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David Hockney
Inland Sea, Japan
1971
crayon on paper
Art Institute of Chicago |
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George Krause
India
1972
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Sheila Hicks
Steichen's Pond
1995
colored paper and cotton thread
Art Institue of Chicago |
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Siri Kivilinna
Reflections on Lake Immeln, Sweden
1995
watercolor on paper
British Museum |
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Katherine Knight
Dock
2001
gelatin silver print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario |
-before-2003-watercolor-and-ink-on-board-Beaverbrook-Art-Gallery-Fredericton-New-Brunswick.jpg) |
Cyril Hirtle
Untitled (The Big Fish)
before 2003
watercolor and ink on board
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick |
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Misty Keasler
Magic Mountain Payatas Garbage Dump, Manila, Philippines
2006
inkjet print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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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)
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