Coming Squall (Nahant Beach with a Summer Shower)

Thomas Doughty

Oil on canvas mounted on cradled panel

National Gallery of Art

Painted in 1835 at the height of his career, Thomas Doughty's 'Coming Squall (Nahant Beach with a Summer Shower)' depicts the coastline at Nahant, Massachusetts, as a summer storm gathers over the Atlantic. The work captures shifting atmospheric conditions — darkening skies, agitated surf, and the raw energy of an approaching squall — evoking the tradition of 17th-century Dutch landscape painting in its close observation of weather and light acting upon a coastal scene. Doughty, a Philadelphia-born, largely self-taught artist, was one of the first Americans to devote himself exclusively to landscape painting, and his coastal works of the mid-1830s represent an unusually focused engagement with maritime subjects. The painting exemplifies his gift for rendering nature as a subject worthy of sustained artistic attention, independent of narrative or human drama.