If a series of his pictures is examined it will be seen at once that in each one some special problem is dealt with and some definite phase of the sea is taken as the motive. Unthinking people are apt to say that sea paintings are monotonous because they lack incident and variety of subject, because they are nothing but waves and sky, but this objection implies an unobservant habit of mind. Henry Moore did not repeat himself, and among the most personal characteristics of his work was its breadth of outlook, a breadth of outlook which was developed by his constant search for fresh impressions. Although he had not had, like Stanfield or Chambers, a professional connexion with the sea, he was frequently afloat and always trying to enlarge his experience of his subject. He had, too, the gift of very rapid technical expression which enabled him to set down what he saw while the impression was vividly in his mind, so that his first clear conviction was not modified or obscured by mechanical causes--by that prolongation of effort which leads to an ill-assorted mixing of ideas and an indecisive manner of statement. This combination of instantaneous apprehension and unhesitating expression is, indeed, a necessity for the artist who wishes to avoid a merely conventional rendering of the sea and who is anxious to suggest properly its really infinite variety. There is so much that must be done quickly, there are such incessant changes of effect and condition, that the deliberate worker, thinking slowly and using his appliances unreadily, is always in danger of being left with his intention unrealized. He sees something that appeals to him as a good subject and he begins to study it in all seriousness; but before he has grasped its meaning, and before he has more than the first few careful touches on his canvas, the effect that stirred him has gone, and in its place there is something else that is surprisingly different. No wonder if unable to keep pace with nature’s elusive tricks he becomes after a while hopelessly bewildered and gives up the struggle in despair. Possibly, being a conscientious person, he decides to paint one aspect only of the sea and to specialize in one type of subject which he can master by long and laborious practice; or, being less particular, he builds up a pretty convention which will help him to turn out superficially attractive things that will please a none too critical public. But in neither way is the great sea painter made, the painter who can tell the story of the sea and convey to us its sentiment and its character.