The American artist Winslow Homer concluded the watercolor seascape entitled Nassau II while on his second trip to the Bahamas in 1899. During this period, the painter took various trips to tropical locations like Bermuda, Cuba, and several cities on the coast of Florida. Similar to the Impressionists, Homer would observe the different natural lighting of each landscape in different periods of the day and various weather conditions. The artist portrayed many scenes of the hurricane while in the Bahamas, a yearly event in which the locals protected themselves from, like in the works entitled After the Hurricane and Hurricane, Bahamas.

Although Homer painted outdoors, he did not learn this technique from the French Impressionists, who called this working en plein air. In fact, the artist already worked in the manner before meeting the group of modern artists, but the similarities were possibly a motive for an influence upon Homer’s work. In the early 1870s, Homer began to work with watercolor painting and quickly mastered the medium, varying from a more conservative style to a more experimental and modern approach, thus creating his unique style. The artist would take advantage of his tropical adventures to portray his surroundings with watercolors. By the 1900s, his paintings were valued by museums and art collectors, enabling Homer to reach financial stability.

In Nassau II, the painter portrays a typical seascape, in vibrant colors. The composition is made of three horizontal stripes in different sizes – the sky, the sea, and the sand. There are two sailboats on the left of the paper, with their backs facing the viewer and their sails down. To the right, a small dark rowboat stands alone in the middle of the water. There are some people on these boats, painted with simple brushstrokes and virtually no detail. The ocean was painted with visible strokes of overlapping blue pigments to depict the waves. There are three brown, and ochre cannons washed up on the sand, creating a connection between land and sea. The barrels are beautifully detailed and in perfect perspective. The sand was painted in light brown with some areas of blue, as well as streaks of ochre to portray some vegetations growing on the beach. The sky is dark and cloudy, with watery pigments of blue, violet, and gray – possibly after a storm, which could have washed the cannons on the shore.