A Perfect Illusion of a Fun Fantasy

As I walked through the Art Institute, I notice a painting from the Early American Impressionist called Lotus Lilies by an artist name Charles Courtney Curran, 1888. Curran is best known for his oil canvases that depicted beautiful young women and children in a pleasant settings on lovely summer afternoons. Lotus Lilies is one of Curran's favorite painting that shows his new wife and her cousin seated on a rowboat, near a creek at the family cottage in Ohio. In this painting you will see Curran’s wife, Grace, holding a bouquet of water lilies in her lap, just as she did on their wedding day.

            When I first saw this painting, it really caught my attention.  I notice how Curran painting reflects a perfect illusion of a fun fantasy, almost like you can climb in this painting and enjoy the nice, summer breeze, while help pick lilies. When look at this painting, you will wonder if this painting real or fake. Take, for instance, when looking at the bold, bright colors in the yellow lilies and the brilliant lighting that reflects off the greenish-blue stems, they almost looked animated, like an image from a 3D Disney cartoon. After standing there and staring, I really paying attention to the rich stroke of the brush capturing an amazing textured of the swift moving clouds and sunlight across the sky on the canvas. In this painting it looks as if the wind was blowing the trees. This painting symbolize a lay back atmosphere in the countryside.

Next, you will see how the field of lotus and lilies are spread far back in the lake with a mass of velvety greenish-blue leaves going far back to the tress. The leaves in the lake remind you of frogs sitting on a lily pad. However, when looking at this painting, it gives you a romantic feeling. If you really stare more closely, you will see the strong facial features of these two women. Both women chins and noses are curved perfectly. They have rosy red cheeks small lip lines. This is a realism painting from the Early Impressionist of the French Impressionist era. While looking at both women they are wearing elegant Victorian dresses with sunflower hats on their head. Grace's dress look green or a dusty green color. I wonder if green was her favorite color. There is a large green umbrella behind the ladies, as if it blocking the summer from their face.  

Grace look very shy and shows little emotional affectionate in this painting. You kinds of wonder was she really happy here. Finally, when looking at Grace and her cousin dress all in white, you do wonder if maybe Curran and Grace were having a private wedding ceremony on the lake. Wait a minute; if you really pay close attention, far back, maybe 50 feet away from Grace and her cousin, you will see another couple in the back of them. This couple look as if they are doing the same thing, or could be Curran holding a mirror up and painting their reflection in the background, or there is just another couple there.

1861 Charles Courtney Curran was born in Hartford, Kentucky
1880 Attends Cincinnati School of Design
1881 Attends National Academy of Design in New York
1886 Study art under Walter Satterlee in New York

1887 Earns first exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
1888 Marries Grace Winthrop Wickham of Norwalk, Ohio
1889 Travels to Paris to attend Academy Julian, Paris with Benjamin Constant,
         Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, and Henri Lucien Doucette
1903 Spends summers painting and teaching at the Cragsmoor Art Colony, New York
1904 Begins teaching at the National Academy of Design Pratt Institute Art School,
         Brooklyn, New York and Cooper Union, New York
1936 Travels to Peking, China; Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Yugoslavia
1942 Pass away November 9 in New York City