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Boat on Sea
Edward Mitchell Bannister (born St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada 1828-died Providence, RI 1901)
n.d.
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 5 1/8 x 8 in. (12.9 x 20.4 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of J. Wesley Johnson
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
The sea was a favorite subject for Edward Mitchell Bannister, who had worked as a cook on a trading ship. In this peaceful view of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, a popular subject for nineteenth-century American artists, he focused attention on the brilliant coastal light. Bannister was a deeply religious man who shared with many Americans of his time a belief that nature was an expression of God’s presence. In this scene the radiant light illuminates the bay to suggest a divine blessing. (Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection, 1998)
