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Pomona
Childe Hassam (born Dorchester, MA 1859-died East Hampton, NY 1935)
1900
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 37 1/8 x 25 1/4 in. (94.3 x 64.2 cm)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
This painting shows Pomona, the Roman goddess of gardens and orchards. Childe Hassam, like many artists of the early twentieth century, worried about the effects of working-class immigrants on American society, and the figure of Pomona symbolized his belief that people had to nurture their culture, as they would a garden, to preserve it for future generations. He even described the "radiant" sky in his paintings---a kind of benediction from heaven---as a uniquely American characteristic that, like all of the nation's gifts, helped to foster its culture and pride.
