“The cure for anything is salt water, sweat, tears or the sea.”
~ Isak Dinesen
By Elin Spring
I have been fortunate to live near the ocean my entire life and it still fills me with awe. The way the sea conspires with the atmosphere seems like a metaphor for life itself: sparkling and glorious, treacherous and threatening, everything in between and changeable from one temper to another without warning. Its sweeping spectrum of shades, scents, and sounds have inspired an equally expansive range of artistic interpretations. “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth and “Waves” by Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb, both recently published by Radius Books under the direction of David Chickey and his design team, each possess breathtaking imagery and perspectives that are as different as they are entrancing.
From the book “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, courtesy of the artist.
“The Sea” is one in a series of Barbara Bosworth’s absorbing studies of land and sky, the one I’ve been longing for. The plates of her moody large format images, alternating between color and black & white, all feature the types of of selective focus that favor a sense of atmosphere over factual representation. Bosworth carts her 8” x10” camera to study not only the erratic surface of the sea but its fluctuating junctions with the sky and shore. Images range from reflective and unfathomable surfaces to the luscious and effervescent expressions of “an unknown place, where the lines of heaven and earth blur.”
From the book “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, courtesy of the artist.
From the book “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, courtesy of the artist.
From the book “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, courtesy of the artist.
Bosworth also considers creatures lured by the sea, from spiraling birds and glittering shells to clusters of surf fishers and clamdiggers. These images attest to the irresistible magnetism of the sea and we can feel the pull. But Bosworth is a perennially curious photographer with a serious bent for natural history. She accompanies the body of her book (about 140 pages) with an “Appendix” of nearly 100 pages. In it, we are treated to Bosworth’s range of fascinations, from personal histories like a weeklong “Weather Journal” from Wellfleet, Massachusetts and samples from her global “Sand Collection” to watercolors by the painter J.M.W. Turner and her own grandfather that serve as her inspiration. That’s not all. There are historic navigational maps and texts, including Sir Francis Beaufort’s 1807 “Wind Scale,” colorful vintage guidebook covers and part of naturalist Rachel Carson’s glossary from “Under The Sea-Wind,” (1941) among other intriguing delights. This quirky compendium is a delectable “cabinet of curiosities” bearing Bosworth’s inimitable stamp of genius.
From the book “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, courtesy of the artist.
From the book “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, courtesy of the artist.
From the book “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, courtesy of the artist.
“The Sea” manifests emotional narratives, too. Five sets of Bosworth’s sumptuously reproduced photographic plates are separated by slim inserts containing excerpts of written accounts by authors possessing a spectrum of viewpoints: flowery musings of Virginia Woolf from “The Waves” (1931), eloquent personal observations of coastal Maine in “Littoral Life” by Margot Anne Kelley, an awe-inspiring historical perspective on the origin of “The Sea Around Us” (1951) by Rachel Carson, the late Barry Lopez’ mystical encounter with “The Woman Who Had Shells,” and Jem Southam’s wondrous boyhood confrontation with seabirds off the coast of England. Each adds a different take on what the sea has meant to them, subjective extensions of Bosworth’s impassioned imagery. Her own accompanying notes and essays are no exception, offering an intimate tribute to Bosworth’s profound and abiding relationship with the sea.
From the book “The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, courtesy of the artist.
“Last Light” 2021 by Rebecca Norris Webb from the book “Waves,” courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
“Waves” is the latest collaborative project by Magnum photographer Alex Webb and poet/photographer Rebecca Norris Webb. A self-described “pandemic logbook,” its sequencing of images recalls the languid cadence dictated by months of seclusion, peppered with the uncertainty and fear we all felt during that period. For over a year, the authors sheltered in a house of glass by the sea in the Cape Cod town of Wellfleet. Inspiration for the book’s structure and title arrived with Norris Webb’s serendipitous discovery of an early edition of Virginia Woolf’s poetic novel, “The Waves” (1931) nestled amid the thousands of books left in their house by Webb’s late father, a publisher.
“Cahoon Hollow I” 2020 by Alex Webb from the book “Waves,” courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
“Newcomb Hollow I” 2020 by Alex Webb from the book “Waves”, courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
“Duck Harbor I” 2021 by Alex Webb from the book “Waves”, courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
With the horizontal sweep of his high-resolution panoramic camera, Alex Webb venerates the dispositions of the sea in his tempo of hours, days, and seasons. His expansive photographs nearly defy description (aided nicely by the book’s lay-flat binding). How can a subject so overly photographed seem so breathtakingly new? Webb’s celebrated mastery of light may be at the root, but I suspect it is his lifelong ardor for this place – borne on resplendent pink and blue hues – that makes his photographs so enthralling. The last time I can remember seeing such nuanced waterside photographs was in Joel Meyerowitz’s now classic “Cape Light” (1978), in which he employed an equally high-resolution (8” x 10” view) camera to evoke the subtlety, refinement and emotionally penetrating atmosphere that I feel now in Webb’s work.
“Lieutenant Island I” 2021 by Alex Webb from the book “Waves”, courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
“Writing Room II” 2020 by Rebecca Norris Webb from the book “Waves,” courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
Webb’s seascapes are fortified by sage sequencing with Norris Webb’s ethereal interior images. At once mirrors and windows, her layered photographs and spare prose convey the experience of isolation, especially the paradoxical way it can both disquiet and soothe: “Wave after wave, will part of us remain anchored and unmoored?”
“Writing Room III” 2020 by Rebecca Norris Webb from the book “Waves,” courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
In many of Norris Webb’s photographs, a glowing lamp and the veil of a window screen offer a sense of both protection and confinement while framing an outdoor scene by turns as serene or as desolate as Webb’s seascapes. More directed images, like a vase of forsythia in the waning winter sunlight or a dead baby harp seal washed ashore, chart the waves of hope and despair that became the rhythm of our days. Norris Webb’s images are solemn and wistful, an ambiance sustained by her luminous yellows and blood reds.
“Rain” 2020 by Rebecca Norris Webb from the book “Waves,” courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
Facsimiles and quotes from Virginia Woolf’s “The Waves” add to the conceptual flow of the book. But. To me, Webb’s capacious horizons and Norris Webb’s intimate, reflective interiors together create an emotional current containing everything the viewer might desire of majesty and mystery.
Feature Image: “Newcomb Hollow II” 2020 by Alex Webb from the book “Waves”, courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
“Writing Room I” 2020 by Rebecca Norris Webb from the book “Waves,” courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston.
For more information or to order these books:
“The Sea” by Barbara Bosworth, Radius Books 2022.
Barbara Bosworth: The Sea
Text by Margot Anne Kelley, Barry Lopez, Jem Southam, Richard Bailey
Hardcover / 10.25 × 12.75 inches
60 images / 200 pages, from 55.00
https://www.radiusbooks.org/all-books/p/barbara-bosworth-the-sea
“Waves” by Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb, Radius Books, 2022.
Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb: Waves
Hardcover / 9.5 x 12 inches
48 images / 108 pages, from 55.00
https://www.radiusbooks.org/all-books/p/alex-webb-and-rebecca-norris-webb-waves
Share On Facebook
Tweet It
