Beach No. 3

Under the influence of the French painters Henri Matisse and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Prendergast put aside his earlier interest in depicting the real world in favor of conveying imaginary scenes. Here, he abandoned conventional perspective; employed tiered bands to create a shallow, frieze-like space; and devised a stylized shorthand to depict anonymous, faceless figures. For the landscape setting, he used dashes of white and yellow paint to imply flowing water and bright daubs of orange and gold to indicate a carpet of flowers.