Prout's Neck, Evening

Although undated, Prout’s Neck, Evening probably belongs to a group of unusually reductive watercolors Homer painted in Maine in 1894. In its near abstraction and reliance on subtle color gradations, this watercolor and others in this group suggest that Homer may have looked closely at traditional Japanese ink paintings. Tranquil in mood, the image is divided nearly in half by the horizon line, with the gray-blue sea and sky reflecting each other, separated only by bare white paper and a wet wash of bright blue along the horizon. Homer emphasized the calm sea by applying color in broad, even washes.