Emily Dickinson on Ladies with Parasols

The parasol is the umbrella's daughter,
And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest
And abridges the rain.

The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored,
And borrowed to this day.
Emily Dickinson

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Simplon Pass The Green Parasol
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Fall Fashion Trend: Japonisme

Japonisme, a French term also used in English, refers to the influence of the arts of Japan on those of the West. The word was first used by Jules Claretie in his book L'Art Francais en 1872. The widespread interest in all things Japanese--art, furnishings, costume, etc.--blossomed after the opening of Japan to Western trade in 1853-54. Western woman began adopting Japanese fashions & portrait painters were excited by the new color & patterns these costumes presented. The color harmonies, simple designs, asymmetrical compositions, & flat forms of Japanese wood block prints strongly influenced the composition of Impressionist & Post-Impressionist art.

Japonisme. Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) Cutting Origami

Japonisme. Guy Rose (1867-1925) Blue Kimono
Japonisme. Jacques-Joseph Tissot (1836-1902) A Woman in a Japanese Bath

Japonisme. John Munnoch (1879-1915) Chinese Coat

Japonisme. Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), Blue and Yellow

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) Japanese Print 1898

Japonisme. Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), Girl in Blue Kimono

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) The Japanese Book 1900
Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) The Kimono 1895

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) Blue Kimono 1898

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) Girl in a Japanese Kimono

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) Peonies 1897

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) Study of a Girl in a Japanese Dress

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) The Black Kimono

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) Woman in Kimono Holding a Japanese Fan

Japonisme. William Merritt Chase (1849 - 1916) Study for Making Her Toilet 1892

More Artists with Parasols

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Miss Wedewood and Miss Sargent Sketching.

Umbrellas as Tents

Frederick Frieseke (1874-1939) Windy Day at the Beach 1906
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Parasols at the Beach

Martha Walter (1875–1976) Chairs at Brighton Beach

Lady with a Parasol

Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1939), Lady with a Parasol
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A Mother By Julius Garibaldi "Gari" Melchers (1860-1932)

Julius Garibaldi Gari Melchers (1860-1934) Mother and Child 1904
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John Singer Sargent's (1856 - 1925) Ladies with Fans

Summer is passing so quickly. It is surely time to share these portraits of women holding fans dressed in luminous summer dresses.

The painter of these portraits, John Singer Sargent, was one of the American artists who went to study in Paris. After the American Civil War, Paris was a bustling cosmopolitan city & the capital of the western art world. Art students went to Paris to enroll in one of the many art schools there, seeking to polish their academic education. More established artists used Paris as a proving ground, leveraging exhibiting in its important international exhibitions to establish their artistic reputations. A few made Paris their home, becoming part of a significant American expatriate community in the French capital. As the novelist Henry James reported of the "irresistible city" in an 1887 article, "it sounds like a paradox, but it is a very simple truth, that when today we look for American art we find it mainly in Paris. When we find it out of Paris, we at least find a good deal of Paris in it."

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Etta Durham

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Ian Hamilton (Jean Muir)

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Joseph Chamberlain

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Thomas Wodehouse Legh

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Hamilton McKown Twombly (Florence Adele Vanderbilt)
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Cecil Wade

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Countess Clary Aldringen Threse Kinsky
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Mahlon Day Sands (Mary Hartpeace)
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Ada Rehan
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Frederick Barnard

John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs Henry White
John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925). Mrs William Playfair.

Waiting

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) Across the Room (also known as By the Window and/or Leisure Hour) 1899
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Sitting under Seaside Parasols

Edward Henry Potthast (1857 - 1927) Long Beach 1922
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It's Actually Cool Here This Morning

The seasons are going to change, before I have time to post these women of summer. Here are a few late Victorian ladies from Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938).

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) Eleanor Hyde 1906

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) Margaret Under the Elms 1895

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) A Lady 1891

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) My Wife, Emeline, in a Garden 1890
Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) Emeline, in a Garden 1890

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) Summer Idyll (also known as Girl and Pine Trees) 1899
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Something to While Away the Hours

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862 – 1938) Reading by a Window 1903
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The Formula

This American artist loved to paint summer women in white dresses with skirts & scarves blowing in the wind surrounded by blue skies. (It should be noted that they are wearing "sensible" shoes.) His formula worked. Prolific & popular, Charles Courtney Curran (1861–1942) from Hartford, Kentucky, was only 23, when he received artistic recognition by exhibiting at New York’s National Academy of Design.

Curran’s style & skill in portraying light were honed by 2 years at Paris’ Academie Julien. On his return, Curran kept studios in New York City & Cragsmore, New York. Curran taught at the Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, & the National Academy. The cliffs & clouds he painted were the landscape of Cragsmore, a community of artists.

He liked to inject just a little bit of whimsical tension into his paintings of fragile, innocent women in white dresses by precariously perching them atop craggy hilltops & ledges engulfed in a perfect backdrop of blue sky & fluffy white clouds. But only a little bit of tension, mind you. At least I think it was whimsy. The women standing alone remind me of early 20th century Lady Liberties.

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Summer Clouds 1917
Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) The Boulder 1919

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) On the Heights

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Summer 1906
Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Sunlit Valey 1920

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Noonday Sunlight

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) On the Cliff 1910

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) The Veiled Cloud 1926
Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Faraway Thoughts

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Ragged Clouds 1922

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942)

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942)
Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Sunny Morning

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) High Country 1917

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Sunshine and Haze

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) The Green Jacket 1917
Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942)

Charles Courtney Curran (1861-1942) Cliffs at Cragsmor
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