"A Drowsy Day" by Elizbeth Holsman
A MONA Moment |
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A saturated meadow, So writes poet Robert Frost, in his poem Rose Pogonias, conjuring up for us the idea and image of a summer meadow, one we have all experienced, perhaps embraced in the shadow of a low hanging bough. The mood is captured by the Brownville, Nebraska artist, Elizabeth Holsman, in her exquisite 1915 painting, A Drowsy Day. Ms. Holsman received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, and studied at the Chicago Art Institute. Like so many artists of her generation, the powerful spell of Impressionism inspired some of her finest work.
If her reputation relied solely on A Drowsy Day, it would be enough to secure her a place as an artist fully accomplished in the wing of the Impressionist movement inspired by Monet. In classic impressionist technique, paint is applied in individual daubs, each with its own, rich character, each taking on an interesting life of its own; and, in juxtaposition with its neighboring daubs, creating optical effects and illusions which radiate and intensify color.
Here, for instance, the branches of a tree overhanging a still pond rest in a rich bed of blue. The blue is never logically explained by the setting of the background beyond the tree, it is blue because, well, it must be blue. As a contrasting color it stokes the fiery heart of green in the branches. Opposing diagonal brushstrokes of blue and green at the border of the boughs create movement, wind fluttering the leaves.
In the pond below, Ms. Holsman tips her hat to Monet. The pond is ringed by Waterlily pads, small green barges carrying their little loads of pink and white paint. In the shimmering surface of the pond she finds a way to infuse deep, purple violets, richened by red highlights. We are struck by her imaginative use of blue and violet oil paints, applied with the subtle tonal range of pastels. This muted richness is soothing but never uninteresting.
The pond is the dark center of the painting from which radiate broad bands of pastels, a horizontal plane of flesh toned violets topped by a rolling hill of summer with its indistinct yellows and greens. Blurred by distance, we've seen these vague, hazy colors before, vibrating in the heat and an occasional wisp of wind. A path in the foreground glides into view, shaded at first, then dappled with light. At its edge sprays of green grasses flare out to the top of the pond bank.
The trees add an architectural solidity to the composition. This is a difficult challenge to the Impressionist painter, anchoring the lightness of light and sumptuous freedom of color into a composition with some weight and structural coherence for the eye. Some were not up to it. Holsman accomplished this by filling her spaces with broad areas of shape: circles (the pond), rectangles (the green yellow field), intersecting lines (the horizontal path meeting the vertical tree). Stand back from the painting about ten feet, and these outlines harden slightly, giving the composition a satisfying unity, while at play around this subtle architecture color shimmers and disperses with willowy ease and effervescent delight.
The final stanza of the Frost poem is our benediction on this scene:
We raised a simple prayer
Sun-shaped and jewel-small,
A circle scarcely wider
Than the trees around were tall;
Where winds were quite excluded,
And the air was stifling sweet
With the breath of many flowers,
A temple of the heat.
Before we left the spot,
That in the general mowing
That place might be forgot;
Or if not all so favoroured,
Obtain such grace of hours,
That none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers.
