The Concord Meadow

In the early autumn of 1891 Childe Hassam visited Concord, in northeastern Massachusetts. The trip resulted in a series of beautiful landscapes executed in pastel augmented with gouache. Drawn with quick, sure strokes and described through contrasting warm and cool tones, The Concord Meadow simultaneously suggests the expanse of grassland framed by a hilly ridge that defines this locale and evokes the fleeting particulars of light, color and atmosphere.Hassam began using pastel in Paris in the late 1880s after seeing it employed to great advantage by the French Impressionists. Like Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Hassam recognized that the inherent soft texture of the medium was an ideal way to enhance the impressionistic effects he sought.