Flecks of Foam
The painting depicts a rocky coastline dotted with color. The horizon is high in the scene, and a strip of pale-yellow sky is visible at the very top of the painting. Along the rocky coast in the distance, the colorful land meets vivid turquoise and green ocean waters, with white lines indicating small waves. A red-striped umbrella in the top left corner appears to shelter a person in a long white dress; the umbrella obscures their face. The rocks have been painted with thick dots of black, white, yellow, orange, red, and green. The brushstrokes are expressive and the paint has been thickly applied in dots and dashes.
Colors in this work
Details
- Artist
- Henry Golden Dearth
- Date
- c. 1911/1912
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- overall: 45.3 x 55 cm (17 13/16 x 21 5/8 in.) framed: 62.2 x 72.1 x 5.4 cm (24 1/2 x 28 3/8 x 2 1/8 in.)
- Department
- CMC
- Holding institution
- National Gallery of Art
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- national-gallery-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Chester Dale Collection
Art Genome Taxonomy
11 tags
Subject Matter
-
Landscapes and Waterscapes Both · 99%
The image and catalog describe a rocky coastline with ocean water, shoreline, and small pale wave marks.
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Figures in Nature Both · 84%
A small, partially obscured person appears beneath the umbrella within the coastal setting; the catalog identifies a person in a long white dress.
Visual Qualities
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Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 96%
The scene contains strongly saturated turquoise, green, yellow, orange, and red passages, particularly in the water, rocks, and umbrella.
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Dotted Both · 99%
The catalog specifically describes thick dots, while the image visibly contains numerous discrete dark, pale, and colored dabs across the rocks and foreground.
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Dense Composition Visual · 92%
The composition is densely occupied by overlapping rocky forms, shallow water, and heavily worked marks, leaving little unpainted space.
Medium and Techniques
-
Impasto Both · 96%
The surface is visibly heavily built up and tactile, and the catalog describes the paint as thickly applied in dots and dashes.
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Gestural Both · 95%
The catalog calls the brushstrokes expressive, and the image shows energetic, varied directional marks across the rocks and water.
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Oil Painting Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies the medium as oil on wood.
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Painting Metadata · 99%
The work is classified by the catalog as a painting.
Time Periods
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1900 - 1917 Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog dates the work c. 1911/1912, placing it within the 1900–1917 period category.
Materials
-
Wood Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies the support as wood.
Source & rights
Henry Golden Dearth. Flecks of Foam. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.
High-resolution sources
- IIIF image service ↗ 7,331 × 5,996 · National Gallery Of Art · Available