Salem Cove

A seaside gathering fills the canvas, with many figures clustered beneath leafy trees along the shore. The painter builds the scene from blues, greens, browns, and earth tones, giving the whole composition a warm, layered feel. This is a landscape painting, created in 1916 in oil, and it is held at the National Gallery of Art. The artist, Maurice Brazil Prendergast (1858–1924), was an American painter and draftsperson associated with Post-impressionism and the Ashcan School, and he also created the notable work Autumn. Looking closely, the figures beneath the trees seem woven into the dappled color rather than set apart from it, so the crowd and the foliage read almost as one continuous surface of paint.