Yachts in a Squall

In ‘retirement’ my parents, Richard and Mavis, would drive to Lepe Beach and sit in the car just observing.  Sometimes there would be the activity of people and dogs to amuse them, or bait diggers at low tide, or the rhythms of stones, sea and sky ever changing.  On this occasion, the drama was in yachts racing off Cowes, driven unusually close to the shore at Lepe by strong winds.  He captures the moment, conveying the excitement in the apparent speed of execution, and movement of brushstrokes.  This style can be seen in other works but perhaps not to such a degree.  It is almost breathless, sensing the danger the yachts are in, in such close proximity, catching it before they were gone.  In spite of the immediacy of the painting, it would have been done back in the studio.  He never painted in situ.  He might have made a quick sketch in a tiny notebook, but he had a remarkable visual memory which stored images sometimes for years, to be used later, charged with all the imagination of "emotion recollected in tranquility".