Lago Avernus, William Trost Richards

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Watercolor and gouache on blue paper, 4 1/2 x 9 1/9 inches (11 x 24 cm).

Lago Avernus (“Lake Avernus”) is a lake in a volcanic crater in the Campania region of southern Italy. Once believed to be the mythical entrance to the Underworld, the lake’s quiet beauty has been the subject over time of paintings by a number of artists.

Richards has chosen a vantage point from which we see a good bit of the surrounding countryside, giving the lake a beautiful setting.

Like most of the great masters of the medium of watercolor, Richards was unabashed about using gouache to add highlights when he wanted them.

Here he’s applied gouache highlights to the foreground trees with casual, wonderfully painterly strokes that look almost like drybrush oil. I also love the light textural marks he has scrubbed across the surface of the foreground foliage.

Given the richness of the surface and level of detail, it’s easy to forget that Richards is working quite small in this piece (as he often did in his location watercolors), at less than 5 inches high.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose; John Singer Sargent

Link is to a zoomable version on Google Art Project; downloadable, high-resolution file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the Tate, Britain.

One of my favorite paintings by Sargent (which is to say, one of my favorite paintings by anyone), this is something of an elaborately constructed fantasy of a summer night, created by Sargent to capture the idea of the glowing lanterns at dusk, and the innocent childlike delight they can evoke.

What is not obvious is the large size of the work: 68 × 60 in (174 × 154 cm), and the way it envelops you when standing before it. The painting’s critical reception was mixed, but it was the first of Sargent’s works to be purchased by a museum.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose was painted during the time when Sargent had left Paris for England, and temporarily semi-retired from society portraiture following the unwelcome scandal that surrounded his famous Portrait of Madame X.

The account is that Sargent was inspired by a glimpse of chinese lanterns on the shore while boating on the Thames with American artist Edwin Austin Abbey.

Sargent set up to paint in the garden of painter F.D. Millet, at whose home he was staying, initially using Millet’s daughter as a model, but then replacing her with the daughters of illustrator Frederick Barnard, whose hair color he preferred for his composition.

Sargent worked on the piece for more than two months, his painting time limited by his desire to catch the real color and sensation of twilight.

The background is a made-up amalgam of elements, that Sargent gleaned from studying the children, lanterns and the garden over the course of several weeks, eventually even using lillies in vases when those in the garden faded. His preparatory work included drawings and painted sketches (image above, bottom).

There is a nice account on the Tate website, as well as an article on the Guardian, another on The Royal Academy of Arts, and a Wikipedia page devoted to the painting.

The title comes from a song popular at the time, The Wreath, a line and refrain from which mention Flora, Goddess of Spring, and goes… “A wreath around her head, around her head she wore, Carnation, lily, lily, rose”.

The children seem innocently enrapt in the lighting of the lanterns, with that complete absorption they can bring to simple tasks. I love the way the reflected light in their faces and hands carries forward the glow of the lanterns. Even the flowers and buds, set against the darker grass and foliage, take on much the same character as the lanterns, as if the flowers themselves were alight in the dusk.

It’s interesting to compare this piece by Luther Emerson Van Gorder, which was undoubtedly inspired by Sargent’s painting.

Portrait of Rosalba Peale, Rembrandt Peale

The link is to a zoomable version on the Google Art Project; there is a downloadable file on Wikipedia; the original is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which also has a zoomable version.

As his father, Charles Wilson Peale, had done for him, Rembrandt Peale tutored his daughters in painting and the sciences.

Here, his affectionate portrait of Rosalba in her early twenties shows an alert, pensive young woman sitting for her portrait with patient equanimity.

Rembrandt Peale also painted a later portrait of Rosalba with her sister, Eleanor.