Appreciating Art - Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent

You may recognize this image ~ it's on the home page of my blog! I added it because it's one of my favorite pieces of art by American artist John Singer Sargent.

The image depicts two girls lighting lanterns, presumably in a garden. I love the color scheme - though I'm not a particular fan of pink, I quite enjoy the soft hue Sargent provides in this piece. Among that, we also see white, lush green, and a peach sort of color, used for the lanterns and some of the lilies.

At the time (the summer of 1885), Sargent was living with Francis David Millet, after moving to England due to the scandal caused by a painting he'd made, Portrait of Madame X. The location of the artwork is set at the Farnham House in Boradway in the Cotswolds, where Millet lived at the time.

The original subject for this work was set to be Millet's five year daughter, Katherine, though in the end illustrator Fredrick Barnard's two daughters, eleven year old Dolly (shown left) and her sister Polly, 7 years old (right), were chosen.

The title of this painting comes from a popular song called "Ye Shepherds Tell Me" by Joseph Mazzinghi. One verse to the song goes "A wreath around her head, around her head she wore, Carnation, lily, lily, rose." Sargent also got inspiration for his artwork while boating on the River Thames. He saw lanterns hanging from the trees and lilies.

At one point, it was displayed at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1887. The art received both positive and negative comments. It was criticized for being "Frenchified." Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, praised it and encouraged the Tate Gallery to buy the artwork later in the year. It was the first of Sargent's art to be in a museum. Today it remains as part of the Tate collection, and is shown at Tate Britain.