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Collections: American Art: The Waste of Waters is Their Field

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The Waste of Waters is Their Field

Albert Pinkham Ryder was regarded as a visionary and experimental painter among Centennial-era artists. He often addressed the there of human destiny, as played out In literature or the Bible but he rendered his subjects with highly simplified or expressively exaggerated forms and densely textured surfaces that challenged the visual expectations of his audience. Ryder based this seascape on a poem by the Englishman Robert Southey that recounted the ocean voyage of a medieval king to the New World: "Day after day, day after day the same . . . A weary waste of waters!"

Artist: Albert Pinkham Ryder, American, 1847-1917
Medium: Oil on panel
Dates: early 1880s
Dimensions: 11 5/16 x 12 in. (28.8 x 30.5 cm)
Signature: Unsigned
Collections: American Art
Museum Location: This item is on view in American Identities: A New Look, Making Art: Centennial Era, 5th Floor
Accession Number: 14.556
Credit Line: John B. Woodward Memorial Fund
Image: Overall, 14.556_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph

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lillie (6)
- poetic moody
- seascape
- landscape
- American oil
- American artist
- unstable material
ninakuriloff (1)
- oil on panel
jibbajabba (2)
- water
- sky

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Location: 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
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