11/22/2017
Childe Hassam (1859-1935) | Mount Vernon Street, Boston, | Looking Toward the State House, c. 1890 | Oil on canvas, 18 ¼ x 16 inches | Signed lower right: Childe Hassam
Born and raised in nearby Dorchester, Massachusetts, Childe Hassam spent his early career in Boston, before studying in Paris. In our painting, Boston emerges from overcast and snowy weather for the first time in Hassam’s oeuvre. Under a blue sky, strong sunlight reflects on the golden dome of the State House to the east and catches the dormer windows and chimneys of Beacon Hill’s Federal townhouses. Mount Vernon Street below remains in shadow, save for narrow shafts of late afternoon light that stream through the intersections, dramatically illuminating the figures and carriages. In keeping with the Impressionist style he had seen in Paris, Hassam chose a light effect specific to a time of day and used broad strokes and bright colors to describe it, even if this came at the expense of precise modeling. The painting is an announcement of Hassam’s stylistic allegiance, and it predicts the leading role he would play in American Impressionism from this point on.
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