Alfred Cohen: An American Artist in Europe - Between Figuration and Abstraction

Wells-next-the-Sea is the nearest port to Wighton. Cohen returned to this composition several times. It's another teasing title - about several kinds of departure. This particular coaster is leaving Wells on this occasion, but in another version, The Last Coaster Leaving Wells, leaves it for good. It has the poetry of departure and an anticipated nostalgia - you won't see sights like this for much longer, in an age of container ports and pantechnicons… But this version also has a striking geometry: the diagonal of the crane's arm (on the left), braced against the quayside, placed at the same angle in the other direction. These diagonals form the left side of a hexagon shape, dividing up a long, thin landscape format, which is also divided horizontally; the boat fills the trapezoid lower half. The two clouds (far left) are also both surprisingly hexagonal, echoing or announcing the importance of this shape as an organizing principle in the rest of the composition.