Water Memories

In 1895, MacNeil observed a Hopi ceremony help in Oraibi, Arizona. Captivated by the dancers who caught and released live snakes (which are believed to carry prayers for rain), MacNeil created this commemorative medal. By 1915, the Hopi had outlawed outside recording of their ceremonies including sketches and photography.

In 1895, MacNeil observed a Hopi ceremony help in Oraibi, Arizona. Captivated by the dancers who caught and released live snakes (which are believed to carry prayers for rain), MacNeil created this commemorative medal. By 1915, the Hopi had outlawed outside recording of their ceremonies including sketches and photography.

In early 1929, Dove and his partner, artist Helen Torr, lived in a waterside cottage near Noroton Point, Connecticut. A seasoned boatman and keen observer of nature, Dove undoubtedly watched the chilly winter tides ebb and flow on the Long Island Sound. He distilled those observations in this nearly monochromatic abstraction, in which irregular waves, some tipped with flecks of white suggestive of foam, rush toward an implied shoreline across a background of vertical bars that evoke the ridges of the ocean floor. By harnessing the emotional power of color and line, Dove expressed his subjective response to nature.

From 1891 to 1902, Chase served as the director of the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art in the town of Southampton, on Long Island, New York. Chase taught two days each week and spent the rest of his time painting and enjoying the company of his family. In this canvas, women and children take their ease on a beach, probably along Shinnecock Bay. A perfect site for genteel leisure on a perfect day, Chase’s rendering is capped by a broad expanse of sky that fills the upper half of the canvas. The scudding clouds artfully echo the bright white forms of the children’s dresses and the parasol.

Read a Native Perspective on this work.

With the goal of developing the Mississippi River into a secure transportation route, the United States Army Corps of Engineers hired Prussian-born cartographer Bosse to map the upper portion of the waterway between Minneapolis and St. Louis. Over the course
of ten years, he documented its meandering path under the dome of the Midwestern sky. His choice of the cyanotype—the same process used until recently by architects to duplicate their line drawings—was likely one of economy, as the materials were readily available to draftsmen. While many of his photographs document the interplay between the natural and the manmade, in this tranquil image, Bosse emphasizes sky and water, evoking the immensity and utter expansiveness of a subject that seems to have no bounds.

Tightly woven to hold water, this basket exemplifies the craftsmanship of Southern California weavers during the Spanish mission period in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The more complex designs are seen only on the bottom of the vessel: concentric circles of crosses, triangles, and diamonds radiate outward from the coil’s center. The outside of the vessel features alternating bands of solid bars and checkerboard patterns on the body and a series of rhomboid shapes on the neck.