Lines and Colors art blog

Eye Candy for Today: Hassam’s Fifth Avenue flags

Rainy Day, Fifth Avenue and Flags, Fifth Avenue by Childe Hssam
Rainy Day, Fifth Avenue, and Flags, Fifth Avenue; Childe Hassam

First link is to Princeton University Art Museum, which has the original oil in its collection (there is also a version on Wikimdeia Commons); the second link is to Wikimedia Commons; I don’t know the location of the original watercolor.

Today is Veterans Day here in the U.S., when it’s traditional to fly the American flag in honor of those in military service, past and present.

Inspired by a view along Fifth Avenue on “Preparedness Day” around the time of World War I, American Impressionist Childe Hassam began a series of what would eventually be 30 paintings on the theme of the American Flag, in many of the compositions flying along New York’s Fifth Avenue.

I find particularly interesting similarities and contrasts in these two, the oil showing the muted tones of the flag and street on a rainy day — rendered in Hassam’s clipped almost pastel-like brush strokes —and the sunny, interestingly similar point of view — in free but precise watercolor.