Mary Cassatt’s “Children Playing on the Beach” adeptly expresses children’s spontaneous gestures and attitudes. Cassatt (1844 – 1926) conveyed their endearing awkwardness and intense concentration through charming expressions and appealingly clumsy body language. Repetitive accents of dark blue dresses and white pinafores accentuate surface patterns, while the girls’ arms, legs and heads create solid areas of color. As the ocean background dissolves into haze, the girls become the work’s focal point.