Bridge At Old Lyme Essay

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Childe Hassam was an American impressionist born on October 17, 1859 in Dorchester, Massachusetts right outside of Boston (Weinberg & Barker, 2004). Hassam lived until 1935 and during his lifetime he created a plethora of renowned works. One of his famous works, Bridge at Old Lyme, can be found in the Georgia Museum of Art here in Athens. This beautiful oil on canvas landscape was created in 1908. Although this piece is not very large, it caught my eye as soon as I entered that part of the gallery and I was immediately intrigued.
Hassam’s Bridge at Old Lyme is a representational piece of a bridge that expands over a body of water with a male and a dog walking down a road in a vast landscape of hills and trees. Given the fact that Hassam was …show more content…

Hassam showed motion in the dog and male figure by making their legs be one in front of the other. He also made sure to show one of the legs on the male bending as it would when one is walking. He implied that the sun was shining from the left side of the painting because the shadow of the man and his dog are to the right of their bodies, and also the bridge is casting a shadow to the right. Hassam creates these shadows through his use of color. When you look to the right of the two figures, you can see dark gray or even black brushstrokes that create a sense of a shadow. The shadow on the water was created by the use of purple, because shadows on water do not necessarily look the same as shadows on the ground. Also, Hassam uses different colors on the water to show its reflective qualities. When looking at the water, you can see that the sky and the clouds are being reflected instead of just seeing blue water. The white brush strokes are parallel to where the clouds are located in the sky and there is blue in between these white clusters where the clouds are not present in the sky. In the shadow from the bridge, you can see light brush strokes of a whiter color that shows that the poles holding up the bridge are reflecting off the water. All of these elements together, flow together smoothly and are a realistic representation of what a landscape would look like in person, so it gives you the sense that you yourself are looking out onto this

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