It is now possible to appreciate the painting properly. It shows a view across the English Channel from the Dorset cliffs, looking directly into a sun partly obscured by clouds. Brett was interested in these atmospheric and optical effects, rather than the detail of the scene.

We can also see how the painting was made. Brett began with a white primed canvas bought from the colourman's shop. He gave it a fresh coat of lead white, in the Pre-Raphaelite manner, and then applied a pale pink wash across the horizon in the sky and sea to provide a dominant tone for the painting. In the white layer he introduced a fine texture, like that from a flock roller. He probably let this layer dry thoroughly until it developed a solid glossy surface. He then applied a thin layer of fresh oil paint which would have been repelled by this underlayer; presumably he did this deliberately, to provide an overall texture that would have been very painstaking to generate any other way. As well as this broad texture, Brett used a number of other painterly devices. For example, towards the horizon the paint is applied in isolated dabs of colour, in a purely Impressionist technique.