John Sloan, Dunes at Annisquam

John Sloan, Dunes at Annisquam
oil on canvas, 1914
Milwaukee Art Museum
Gift of Juel Stryker in Honor of Her Parents, Clinton E. and Sarah H. Stryker
(source: Facebook page of Bing McGilvray)
no copyright infringement intended

This post is dedicated to Bing McGilvray.

Annisquam is a small waterfront neighborhood of Gloucester, on Massachusetts North Shore and in the late 19th century it was home to an artist colony (wiki). Now, I don't know if the colony was still in place in 1914, when John Sloan came there to spend the summer. Anyway, he enjoyed the staying and came back in the following years. The paintings created there are far away from his well known style. I have a great admiration for his works depicting Manhattan, the inexhaustible energy they transmit to the viewer, and I must say I understood much of the essence of New York by looking at his paintings.

Well, at Annisquam, Sloan was totally different, painting plein-air landscapes with a fluid color, calling in mind rather Van Gogh and the Fauves (John Loughery: John Sloan, painter and rebel, ed. Henry Holt, NY, 1995, pp.202-205 - quoted by wiki) than his usual Ashcanian ways.

Dunes at Annisquam is such a colorful, luminous landscape, full of enthusiasm for life, for sun, for sea, for the wilderness of shore, for living in full air, in communion with all this, far from the challenges of the metropolis, like being your own man.


(New England)