[Seascape with foreground rocks]

Watercolor was a part of Richards's repertoire as a landscape painter, but his interest grew in depicting the sea and shore. This work was made the same year the artist joined the American Water Color Society (founded in 1866). It is in keeping with the contemporary taste for highly finished, delicate, and precise watercolors. Richards layered his imagery with controlled, translucent washes over light pencil drawing. His attention to accuracy and detail, not only regarding water and the way it behaves but also atmosphere, bespeak his commitment to the English critic John Ruskin's doctrine of absolute truth to nature.