Art Elements: "The South Ledges, Appledore"

This painting is called The South Ledges, Appledore it was made by Childe Hassam towards the end of WWI. In this painting a woman looks over the cliffs in Appledore, Maine, towards the ocean, soaking in the sunlight of Appledore's short summer. In this post I am going to examine Hassam's use of tone, color, and pattern (brush strokes).

In this painting Hassam uses tone to create shadows which give the appearance of depth in the cliffs. As you look at the cliffs you may notice how there are small spots that are lighter or darker than other sections. These slightly darker spots create the illusion of shadow on the rocks. This is representative of how the sun would cast its light differently on rocks that were at different depths.

You may also notice the many colors present in the water. The combination of these blues, purples, greens and white add movement to the water. For example, the white shows the crests of waves, which is why it is more prevalent towards the shore. The purple shows the depth as a wave rolls back, and the greens and blues allow you to see the currents and how the water moves within itself.

If you look closely at the painting, you can see that the way the paint was added was consistently in a repetitive pattern of very short strokes. This adds a sense of balance to the painting. All of the colors are present in just very shorts lines, and they are consistently surrounded by strokes of different color. I think that the consistency and balance of short "brushstrokes" allows for the added color depth in this painting. With such shorts bursts of each color, andso many different colors around it, Hassam allowed for so much movement in this painting. It allows you to see the wind through the woman's clothing, the depth in the cliffs and the movement in the water.

To me this seems like the kind of painting that now sits in a country club in Maine or Massachusetts. It was a painting made by a wealthy artist about their summer spent "upstate", and to me it would still work well in a country club type setting. One reason I chose this painting was because it reminded me of the summer days I've spent in costal towns in Maine. Much of costal Maine is very similar with wind, high cliffs, and ocean, but it is one of my favorite places to be.

Bibliography:

Smithsonian Institution (no date) The South Ledges, Appledore, Smithsonian Institution. Available at: https://www.si.edu/object/south-ledges-appledore:saam_1929.6.62 (Accessed: 18 September 2023).