Dike painted Sicilian Houses while in Taormina on a sketching trip through Sicily. The island is known for its bright sunshine, yet Dike chose to paint the scene in a dark, somewhat harsh palette of greens, browns, and bluegrays as if to underscore the severity of the people’s lives.
The watercolor exhibits the bold execution that would become a hallmark of the California watercolor school. Indeed it is even more rugged and experimental than Dike’s later watercolors. In Sicilian Houses he vigorously applied the pigment, leaving small bits of white paper exposed. The overall impression is of almost chaotic agitation despite the generally calm mood of the subject. Dike gave texture to the tree limbs and hillside on the left by lightly rubbing a dry brush over the paper; such textural effects would later disappear from his work.
