1833 -1905 · Philadelphia, Newport and geological truth of the sea

Translucent waves, meticulous rocks and Guernsey coasts make William Trost Richards a rigorous poet of the Atlantic coast.

William Trost Richards was born in Philadelphia in 1833 and died in Newport in 1905. He left school early to work as a designer in a company specializing in metal ornaments, while studying painting with Paul Weber. This discipline of line remains at the heart of his art. In the 1850s, he traveled to Europe, observed British and continental landscapes, then approached the Pre-Raphaelite ideas disseminated by the Association for the Advancement of Truth in Art in the United States. For Richards, nature must be examined without convention: each leaf, rock stratum, reflection and movement of water has a structure that must be understood before paint. His first landscapes of forests and mountains linked him to the second generation of the Hudson River School, but he gradually turned away from grandiose panoramas to study the coast. Installed between Philadelphia, Newport and other sites in New England, he worked with oil and especially watercolor, a medium which allowed him to grasp the transparency of air and water. His repeated stays in Great Britain attracted him to Cornwall, the Hebrides and especially the Channel Islands. His repeated stays in Great Britain attracted him to Cornwall, the Hebrides and the Channel Islands. His repeated stays in Great Britain attracted him to Cornwall, the Hebrides and the Channel Islands. At Icart Point and Moulin Huet Bay, Guernsey, cliffs, tides and atmospheric depth were observed with almost topographical accuracy. Surf concentrates the energy of the wave: the luminous crest, the scattered foam and the weight of the water respond to the resistance of the shore. However, this accuracy is never cold. Indian Summer bathes the countryside in a calm light where precision becomes the memory of a season. Richards often refuses anecdotal figures so that the viewer directly experiences the grandeur of climate and geology. A member of the National Academy of Design and the American Watercolor Society, he exhibits widely and helps give landscape watercolor a major status in the United States. His attentive realism unites the science of the gaze, the spirituality of nature and the poetry of changing time. The selection "William Trost Richards" notably compares Baie du Moulin Huet, Guernsey and À Icart Point, Guernsey. His reading favors details.

Richards observes the wave as architecture in motion: its transparency, weight and light must remain equally true.