& shades of green in-between
An upliftingly vibrant sea of scarlet poppies and shimmering, gold-flecked wildflowers flows towards the calm ocean in Childe Hassam’s joyful celebration of a coastal garden in New England. Occupying over half the canvas area, the foreground is pulled up towards the viewer’s eye, creating a sense of engulfment by diverse plant colours and forms. The mouth-watering lushness and pulsing vitality of foreground flora contrasts with barren, sun-bleached rocks beyond. Set against the receding cool blue tones of water and sky, this creates powerful depth of perspective in Hassam’s atmospheric composition. The expanse of sky emphasises tiny white sails on the horizon, reinforcing the depth of view and the smallness of the viewer in the wider natural landscape. Sails also hint at a sense of unrestrained freedom and enjoyment of the elements, mirroring the lively pleasure of the immediate garden and far-reaching vista. A sense of both transience and permanence underlies the beautiful scene: seasons, tides, and skies change whilst the rugged geology seems to stand immovable.
American Impressionist painter Frederick Childe Hassam (October 17 1859 – August 27, 1935) was fêted for his handling of colour and light. The art historian A. Hyatt Mayor writes “Hassam’s art reached its peak when he found in the New England freshness just the note that vibrated in sympathy with his delicately happy temperament”.1 The qualities of such a temperament seem to sing out from the composition with an infectious joy. Hassam’s friend, the author and poet Celia Thaxter (née Laighton), dedicatedly created the flourishing garden from a formerly barren landscape on Appledore Island. This provided inspiration to the artists and writers who attended the thriving salon there in the late 19th century, including William Morris Hunt and Sara Orne Jewett. Gardeners in the East, seeking to incorporate native wildflowers into their designs, were eager to read Thaxter’s An Island Garden (1894) which detailed her mission to create an ornamental landscape composed of native plants as well as sympathetic imports. In childhood, Thaxter lived an isolated existence with her parents and two younger siblings at White Island, where her father was lighthouse keeper. In this environment, she acquired a deep level of intimacy and understanding of plants, animals and the ocean. Hassam’s painting is suggestive of such an intimate connection to both the inanimate and living landscape. Today, staff and students at the Shoals Marine Laboratory tend the garden, which has been authentically reconstructed to the descriptions and methods detailed in Thaxter’s book.
1 A. Hyatt Mayor (1940). Childe Hassam. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 35(7), pp. 137-139
Image source
URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Celia_Thaxter%27s_Garden.jpg
Attribution: Childe Hassam, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
