In Sea Nymph, Vedder's proclivity to Italian Renaissance painting is evident. According to Joshua C. Taylor: "[Vedder] built his mosaics of colored paint that conjure up the brilliance of the luminous Italian landscape, he evoked the pageantry of the Renaissance...he turned and twisted his lines in an irrestible, expressive dance that brought walls alive or hauntingly spoke of man and his fate." (National Collection of Fine Arts, Perceptions and Evocations: The Art of Elihu Vedder, Washington, D.C., 1979, p. viii)