# Boat on Sea

- By: Edward Mitchell Bannister (born St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada 1828-died Providence, RI 1901)
- Date: n.d.
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 5 1/8 x 8 in. (12.9 x 20.4 cm.)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of J. Wesley Johnson
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=936)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/c55f0835739cf38e80d3b2a88bfb06df.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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)