Summer
Dewing, Thomas Wilmer (1851-1938)
White, Stanford (1853-1906)
- Yale University Art Gallery
[Museum inv. no.: 1947.83]
Item location
Description
In an original gilded plaster and pine frame by Stanford White, this painting depicts four women in long gowns dancing to music provided by a similarly attired harpist seated at the right side of the scene; background is shades of green suggestive of a woodland area. Text from museum website:Thomas Wilmer Dewing’s dreamlike settings stand in stark contrast to the newly industrialized, gritty environment of late nineteenth-century America. Inspired by the work of James McNeill Whistler, Asian design, and music, Dewing believed that the purpose of the artist is to “see beautifully.” While slender birches sway in measured counterpoint and delicate harp music fills the air, four elegant young women perform a stately arabesque across the canvas, their glowing evening gowns a graceful beat of muted gold, rose, brown, pink, and red. Dewing’s friend the architect Stanford White made the decorative frame.
Iconclass
23E43summer ~ human activities (the four seasons of the year)
43C94
group dancing
41D2 ( + 82)
clothes, costume ( + women's clothes)
48CC75
making music; musician with instrument - CC - out of doors
48CC7322
harp - CC - out of doors
Instruments [MIMO Code] (notes)
Harp [3285] (modern concert style)RIdIM images
