Inspirational Cape Cod Beaches
Cape Cod beach
President Obama is now vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the southern coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. These beaches have attracted vacationers and artists for many years. The constant surf, changing landscape, and persistence of life amid the harsh conditions of beating surf are indeed a wonder and a long attraction for those tending toward contemplation and inspiration.
A visit to any of Cape Cod’s or Martha’s Vineyard’s many encompassing beaches may inspire you to take up journaling, sketching a landscape, or composing a poem. You are not alone. Citizens and visitors to the Cape encompass a long history of artistic endeavor. Some Cape Cod artists have acquired international fame.
Here is a little of the artistic history and some famous artists that have taken advantage of Cape Cod’s inspirational vibes thanks to Jody Anastasio author of Cape Cod NaturePod.
After studying impressionist painting in New York, Charles Webster Hawthorne traveled to Holland and discovered painting en plein air – a style of using outdoor light and color. He returned to the United States to start the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown in 1899. Provincetown is known for its light, and Hawthorne inspired many artists to take advantage of it.
Another artist who found nourishment in Provincetown was Eugene O’Neill, playwright. After a rough early life, involving depression and alcoholism, O’Neill recognized a love for the sea. He spent several years on the ocean, and based many of his later plays on these experiences. He began spending summers in Provincetown in 1916, and the Provincetown Players performed his first play, Bound East for Cardiff, a sea story. O’Neill purchased the old Peaked Hill Lifesaving Station, and lived there with his wife for several years. Here he found an inspirational place for writing.
O’Neill’s presence drew other artists to the nearby dune shacks, rustic buildings originally created for members of the lifesaving service. Artists discovered the dune shacks and moved in. In their artistic heyday of the mid-twentieth century, the shacks are said to have housed the poets Harry Kemp and E.E. Cummings, painter Jackson Pollack, and writers Jack Kerouac and Norman Mailer.
The shacks are now part of an historic district that recognizes the area’s historic association with the development of art and literature in America. They continue to beckon artists, writers, naturalists, solitude-seekers, and all who draw inspiration and renewal from the dramatic dune environment.