‘As watercolour is the quintessential English medium,

so David Cox is the quintessential English watercolourist.’ [1]

Over the last century the art of David Cox has been subjected to the push and pull of competing retrospective categorisation. In one respect his work is said to embody a distinct part of the natural growth from the dominant late 18th century aesthetic systems of the Sublime and the Picturesque, [2] whilst on the other it appears to represent the antithesis, the work of a pioneering pre-Impressionist. [3] The important Yale Center for British Art exhibition, held on the 150th anniversary of Cox’s death in 2008–09, shifted the focus away from the pendulum of competing perspectives toward a deeper exploration of the achievements and individualism of his style, a visual language that never ceased evolving, and, ultimately, his role as a great recorder of weather and the English coast and countryside.

Cox enjoyed painting stretches of sand, as evidenced in his eminent series of works depicting Lancaster Sands, Hastings Beach, and Rhyl Sands. The present watercolour shows a lone group on Rye’s beach beside the Martello Tower. The coastal scene must have been an evocative one in the years of peace following the threat of a French invasion. It forms part of a distinguished tradition of works on paper depicting Rye, stretching back to Anthony van Dyck’s 1633 drawing View of Rye from the Northeast (Morgan Library, New York). ‘After the death of the only watercolourist [Thomas Girtin] who could seriously rival Turner, it was John Varley who transmitted his methods to a generation of younger painters, which included Cox, Copley Fielding, Peter de Wint, William Henry Hunt, William Turner "of Oxford", and others who would constitute the backbone of the Watercolour Society for almost fifty years to come.’ [4]

'The open skies, the broad spaces, and the fresh breezes' were central to Cox’s vision and are expressed with a mastery that continues to captivate viewers today. [5] The accompanying details that decorate his finest watercolours, and for which Cox had such a sensitive eye, are beautifully rendered in Figures on the Beach near Rye. Take, for example, the wonderful cast shadow silhouetted from the horse, subtly directing the eye toward a hidden crouched figure (made from little more than a few strokes of watercolour) within the grasses. Similarly, the beautiful patterning of the woman’s magenta cloak and white-and-blue striped skirt subtly echoes the design of the man’s shirt. Most strikingly, Cox’s delicate technique is revealed in the gentle, lyrical brushwork that describes the basket on the horse in exquisitely fine detail. The two central figures form a ‘V’ shape that points outward toward the viewer, a compositional gesture mirrored above in the shallower ‘V’ of the blue sky. The luminescent white of the paper suggests faint, tiered cirrostratus clouds, distinguished by their subtle gradation and delicate structure. ‘The greatly enlarged sky and subtle yet restrained use of colour to supply a unifying tonality...and seems to justify the opinion of later generations who saw in Cox one of the precursors of the Impressionists.’ [6] 

Subtle touches of grey in the clouds hint at a sky that will soon change. As Scott Wilcox notes, the artist’s central achievement lies in 'his creation of a unique expressive language in which he could represent the changeability of the weather.’ [7] This glimmer of grey encapsulates that very condition of impermanence, not merely in the fluctuating patterns of meteorological effects, but more broadly in the transient nature of existence itself. Travel, the wind, the beach, and the sea reflect this ephemerality and recur as central themes in Cox’s work. [8] ‘In many of Cox's pictures the relationship between figures and landscape is unsettled. People are frequently on the move, some lost or uncertain about their journey. Travellers struggle through violent or threatening weather across difficult terrain, usually with their backs to the spectator. In Cox's farming scenes labourers seem to be not so much working the fields as travelling through them.’ [9] The momentariness and change that informs the tone of much of David Cox's art echoes Tancredi’s famous line, that ‘for things to remain the same, everything must change.’ [10] Cox is likewise successful in establishing a counterpoint between broad swathes and minute, careful touches of watercolour, with the expanse of open beach complementing the delicate rendering of distant Rye or the fine weave on the basket. ‘Like the medium he chose to work in, his art is modest, tending to be intimate and familiar, yet capable of great energy and, occasionally, great power.’ [11]

The viewpoint in the watercolour is low, as it often is in Cox’s compositions, the viewer and the figures are approximately level, a sympathetic position of parity; ‘in contrast to Constable's raised vantage point, Cox's is so low that the working and even the appearance of the countryside is obscured. Often from a path or track, it is the view of a traveller and one in a hurry.’ [12]

‘For at his best he is an artist of the most refined sophistication of design and the most inventive vigour of execution; his work is the locus classicus of the fresh, breezy, outdoor recording of English country life that is most associated with watercolour’. [13]