In this thought-provoking meditative seascape, Diana Neale captures the essence of oceanic contemplation through muted harmonies that evoke James McNeill Whistler's revolutionary Nocturnes. Like Whistler's Blue and Silver: Battersea Reach, this painting achieves what the master called "an arrangement of line, form, and colour first," stripping away anecdotal detail to reveal pure atmospheric poetry. The cresting wave, rendered in luminous whites against silvered greys, recalls Paul Henry's dramatic Atlantic encounters, particularly his powerful The Curragh, where Irish seas surge with primal force.

However, while Henry's post-Impressionist vigour captured the stark realities of Achill Island, Neale transforms her waters into contemplative spaces, offering a unique perspective that flickers between representation and reverie. Her technique of creating delicate layers and translucent surfaces through fine glazes echoes Whistler's belief that the sea was "most fascinating," while also reflecting Henry's understanding of how "sky and sea" can be simplified to their core elements. As Virginia Woolf wrote: "The sea, the sea, the open sea!" This is rendered here through brushwork that whispers rather than roars, producing what Oscar Wilde praised in Whistler as "that wonderful effect... when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry." Neale's Meditation becomes a sanctuary where time seems to slow, inviting viewers into that liminal space where consciousness meets the infinite horizon.