View of Venice

In the summer of 1883, Childe Hassam left his home in Boston and traveled to Europe for the first time, visiting Great Britain, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy. He was inspired not only by the beautiful sites abroad but also by the artwork he encountered on his travels, particularly including the watercolors by the great J.M.W. Turner at the British Museum. He later recounted of his own paintings from this trip, “I made my sketches from nature in watercolor and I used no white. It was this method which led me into the paths of pure color. When I turned to oils, I endeavored to keep my color as vibrant in that medium as it was in water-color.” (as quoted in H.B Weinberg, Childe Hassam: American Impressionist, New York, 2004, p. 254) Indeed, the present oil painting employs vivid colors and a compelling composition—complete with a distant view of St. Mark’s Campanile and an iconic gondolier—to memorialize the artist’s first visit to Venice.

Hassam’s View of Venice emphasizes the blurring between land and water in the Italian city, with the beautifully executed reflections literally obscuring the boundaries. The viewer joins a group of fruit sellers in the foreground as they gaze out at the lagoon and the approaching gondola. With some of the most famous monuments just peeking out above the foliage and nearer buildings, the painting captures the mystique of Venice and its people that can be found even in the quieter moments along its canals. Throughout, the pops of oranges rolling on stone steps and a red flag waving along the coast add a sense of vitality amidst the calm waters.

This work demonstrates the wondrous individual style grounded in Hassam’s keen attention to color, movement and light throughout his career, even before he would spend more significant time amidst the French Impressionists in Paris later in the decade.