At the Seaside
William Merritt Chase, ca. 1892
About this artwork
William Merritt Chase's *At the Seaside* (ca. 1892) captures a sun-drenched afternoon on the beach at Shinnecock Bay, Long Island, where women and children relax under colorful parasols. This oil on canvas, measuring 20 × 34 inches, fills the upper half with a vast sky, evoking boundless leisure and openness. Painted shortly after Chase moved his family to their Shinnecock Hall summer home, it reflects his embrace of plein-air painting during a prolific period leading the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art (1891–1902). Chase's loose, confident brushwork and broken color technique—hallmarks of American Impressionism—shimmer with natural light and atmospheric effects, blending figures seamlessly into the landscape. Influenced by French Impressionists yet rooted in American subjects, the work showcases upper-class summer recreation with a bright palette and vibrant energy. A cornerstone of American Impressionism, *At the Seaside* helped validate native landscapes as compelling as European ones, offering a serene vision of domestic tranquility at the turn of the twentieth century. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing, it invites visitors to bask in this halcyon moment of coastal bliss.