Apple Blossoms

Childe Hassam, who believed an artist “should paint his own time,” chronicled the scenes and events he witnessed through a series of watercolors, oils, and etchings. Born in Massachusetts in 1859, he worked as an illustrator in Boston before touring European art galleries and studios in 1883. His early work from this period reflects the Barbizon school’s preference for rural themes, prevalent among the many artists working in Boston. He also painted a series of urban street scenes characterized by hazy atmospheres in the manner of juste-milieu (middle-of-the-road) painters Giuseppe de Nittis and Jean Beraud. After a second trip to Paris, where he attended the Académie Julian from 1886 to 1889, Hassam began to employ the rapid, broken brushstrokes and brighter palette of the French Impressionists. When he returned to the United States, this became his signature style and, along with Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir, he was one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in America.

In depicting the seaports and villages of New England, or the cityscapes of New York, Boston, or Chicago, Hassam’s work reflects his interest in light and the effects of weather. This small panel of an apple orchard, painted early in his career, captures a fleeting seasonal moment as blossoms flutter in the breeze and a few petals gently tumble to the ground. In some respects it appears Impressionistic—the quick, short brushstrokes of the flowers in soft pink with touches of salmon and daubs of green leaves, give the effect of reflected light and movement. Yet Hassam still employs broader, sweeping strokes in muted shades of green for the field and the trees on the distant horizon, aspects still retained from his exposure to the French Barbizon school. The immediacy of Hassam’s painting technique gives it the appearance of a quick study, yet the work is carefully composed. Tree by tree, the composition leads us back into the picture plane to the white house at the center of the horizon.