Guy Rose

Guy Rose

Date: c. 1890–91

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.2

Text Entries: John Leslie Breck, Theodore Robinson, and Guy Rose were inspired by the undulating landscape surrounding Giverny. Using the hillside as motif, these American artists investigated the changing light and color of the four seasons. Simultaneously with Monet, Robinson experimented with atmospheric conditions, seasonal changes, and different times of day through sequential painting, choosing panoramic views of the Seine River Valley. Soft, fragmented color and hazy atmospheric effects are contrasted against strong diagonals and high horizon lines in his summer landscape From the Hill as well as in Winter Landscape done the same year. Breck dissolves landscape forms in an autumnal light in Giverny Hillside where the built-up paint on the surface adds a physical dimension that contributes to the painting's luminous effect. Painter Guy Rose praised the inspiring Giverny views, "High walls surround picturesque gardens; and long hillsides, checkered with patches of different vegetable growth, slope down to low flat meadows..." In Rose's Giverny Hillside, the qualities of springtime's gentle light, broken brushwork and a simplified color palette reveal the artist's increased involvement with impressionism. Indeed, the sloping hillside garden behind his house may well have been the inspiration for this colorful canvas.