The late-afternoon glow of the sun setting behind a tall stand of trees, a bank of somber gray clouds on the horizon, and the small watery marshland pools, all these are part of the low-lying scenery around Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay that Edward Bannister loved to paint. The self-taught Bannister was a spiritually-minded man who felt close to nature and wondered at its beauty and power. As a young sailor, he became a student of clouds and wind; later, as a painter, he found ways to express his observations and reverence for natureusing sharp contrasts of strong light and deep shadow. In Bannister’s landscapes, nature is supreme, while humans rarely appear.