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Sea Mist and Ocracoke Dune: A Recollection

Acrylic on canvas
53 5/8 x 40 1/8 inches
1966–1971
Now on view: TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, South Carolina

Sensorium: Debussy's La Mer
Debussy: An Impressionist?

Visual art in Paris at the end of the 19th century was at an obsessive peak, and its language permeated culture. It was an easy leap from the visual art form to the aural, especially since the players all ran in the same social and professional circles.

Debussy’s harmonic language had a way of blurring the lines. In the century before him, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms wrung out everything that could be mustered from the harmonic language that was available to them. Wagner then tore it apart. Debussy sought a less violent path. Instead of conquering it, he inherited the techniques that were given to him and then added, enhanced, and deepened it. It’s the same vocabulary, just with a flair and color that the Germans didn’t explore. As a result, a new door opened, one for which the music world didn’t have a name.

 

As exhibited in:
Our Own Work, Our Own Way: Ascendant Women in the Johnson Collection, Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina, 2023; The Columbus Museum, Georgia, 2024; The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 2025

Other works by this artist