Best known for his spare but powerful seascapes, Alfred Bricher typically composed horizontal designs enlivened by the picturesque elements of foreground detail. In this elegant work soft waves break at the diagonal tide line, emphasizing the composition’s horizontal qualities. Here the artist flaunts his talent for detail in the finely rendered rock formation of the middle ground. Typical of Bricher’s late paintings, Sunset on the Coast combines a refined, linear approach with passages of painterly expression to achieve effects of radiant light.