Look Closer: Poppies, Isles of Shoals

Childe Hassam » Poppies, Isles of Shoals » 1891 » Oil on canvas, 19¾ × 24 in (50.2 × 61 cm) » Impressionism
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Margaret and Raymond Horowitz

From the Goodie Collection · American Impressionism

A hillside of red and pink poppies tumbles down toward a calm blue bay. Pale rocks rest in the water, a sailboat drifts by and a single bird crosses the sky. The American painter Childe Hassam made this picture in the summer of 1891, on a tiny island off the coast of New England.

The Isles of Shoals are a cluster of small, rocky islands about ten miles off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. On one of them, Appledore Island, lived the poet Celia Thaxter, whose cottage and famous flower garden drew writers, musicians and painters every summer. Hassam was one of her closest friends, and he came back year after year to paint. Let’s take a closer look.

A sea of poppies

Up close, the poppies aren’t really flowers at all, just thick dabs of red, coral, pink and white paint, set among long, sweeping strokes of green. Step back and they come alive, nodding in the sea breeze. This is the magic of Impressionism: painting the feeling of light and color rather than every petal.

Poppies were Celia Thaxter’s great love. She started her seeds indoors each winter and wrote about her garden in a book, An Island Garden, which Hassam illustrated with his paintings.

One poppy against the sea

Look for the one poppy that rises above all the others, its pale pink petals lifted against the blue of the bay. It’s a small, cheerful moment, a flower reaching for the light.

Babb’s Rock

The big, rounded rock in the middle of the bay is Babb’s Rock, one of Hassam’s favorite subjects, which he painted again and again. Notice that it isn’t gray at all. In the summer sun he saw pink, lavender, blue and even rusty orange in the granite.

A summer morning on a poet’s island, painted in pure sunlight.

Signs of life

Hassam usually left people out of his island paintings. Here, the only hint of anyone else is this little white sailboat, its two sails catching the wind as it crosses the bay.

And way up in the pale sky, a single bird glides by. It’s so small you might miss it, but it gives the whole sky a sense of height and air.

The signature

Down in the lower left corner, Hassam signed his name and the year in red paint, tucked right into the grass. Look along the very bottom edge, too: in places he left the bare canvas showing, adding one more soft color and texture to the scene.