The Room of Flowers

 Childe Hassam is one of my favorite American Impressionist painters, mostly because he loved painting flowers and landscapes.   He spent many summers in the late 1800’s at the island cottage of poetess Celia Thaxter, whose passion was flowers, music and art.   This painting, titled "The Room of Flowers," was painted the year of her death, 1894, as a tribute to the many happy summers Hassam spent at her cottage.

 This painting makes me happy on so many levels; it has so many of my favorite things:  flowers, paintings, a sunny day, an open window, and a relaxing read of a good book.   All it needs is a napping dog or cat to be complete!

I’ve included a couple of Celia Thaxter's quotes about the room, taken from her book, “An Island Garden.”

“Opening out over the long piazza, over the flower beds, and extending almost its whole length, runs the large, light, airy room where a group of happy people gather to pass the swiftly flying summers on the Isle of Shoals.  This room is made first for music;  on the polished floor is no carpet to muffle sound, only a few rugs here and there, like patches of warm green moss on the natural hue of the wood.  There are no heavy draperies to muffle the windows, nothing to absorb the sound.  The piano stands mid-way at one side; there are couches, sofas with pillows of many shades of dull, rich color, but mostly of warm shades of green.  There are low bookcases round the walls, the books screened by short curtains of pleasant olive-green; the high walls to the ceiling are covered with paintings and flowers are everywhere.”

And, also:

“All summer long within this pleasant room the flowers hold carnival in every possible combination of beauty.  All summer it is kept fresh and radiant with their loveliness,—a wonder of bloom, color and fragrance.   Every year a long procession of charming people come and go within its doors, and the flowers that glow for their delight seem to listen with them to the music that stirs each blossom upon its stem.”