The Coming Storm

This small painting captures a moment when nature feels charged and unsettled. Dark clouds gather over a restless sea, while bright patches of land flash with quick strokes of color. Bellows paints the scene with loose, energetic movement, as if the weather is shifting even as you look at it. Nothing here is calm, yet nothing is fully broken open either. It is the tension before an event.

Bellows often painted the coast of Maine, where the landscape offered both beauty and danger. In this work he seems less interested in a specific place than in the feeling of anticipation. The rough textures, sudden contrasts, and quick handling of paint create a sense of nature’s power pressing inward. It suggests how weather can mirror emotion, turning the world into a stage for inner unrest.