Happy Fourth

When I travel into the US, on my long but wonderful bus ride across New York state, I often see the American flag hanging at the front porches of people's homes. It is wonderful to see that Americans still value their flag, and display it, paying no attention to those who try to vilify them with "far right racists" commentary.

Americans are becoming more and more apologetic about their wonderful flag, but here is a painting I posted in 2011 by an American painter, Hassam Childe, who titled this particular flag painting (he did several) he painted in 1916:

The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest Display of the American Flag Ever Seen in New York, Climax of the Preparedness Parade in May)

I hope that Americans return to that bold, courageous, unapologatic love of their flag and their country.

Happy Fourth of July!

Childe Hassam (American, 1859–1935)

The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest
Display of the American Flag Ever Seen
in New York, Climax of the Preparedness
Parade in May), 1916

From my post at Camera Lucida on July 4th, 2011:

About the painting:

In 1916 Hassam embarked upon the Flag series, based on the nationalistic displays of flags, banners, and bunting on the buildings that lined Manhattan streets in response to World War I. During an unusual summer visit to the city, Hassam created this exceptional canvas, one of only two sunny summer flag scenes. While he denoted the site as Fifth Avenue by showing its tall buildings and a green double-decker bus, he obscured the precise location, perhaps to imply that the entire length of the great boulevard was bedecked with flags.

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The links I provided in 2011 for the painting are no longer valid at the Metropolitan Museum's website.

Searching on-line, I found that the painting is actually from a private collection. The best explanation I can find is that the painting was on loan for a Childe exhibition at the Metropolitan in 2004. Here is some more information from the Met's website:

Childe Hassam: American Impressionist
June 10–September 12, 2004

And more here from Traditional Fine Arts Organization (their main website is here):

This spring [2004], The Metropolitan Museum of Art will offer Childe Hassam, American Impressionist, an unprecedented exhibition of about 120 of Hassam's finest oil paintings, watercolors, and pastels, and some 30 prints. Opening on June 10, the retrospective -- the first to appear in a museum since 1972 -- will celebrate Hassam's brilliant handling of color and light and will examine his responses to the advent of the modern era in view of his credo that "the man who will go down to posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of every-day life around him."

And the painting is listed as one of the pieces to be exhibited.

Mystery solved!

The exhuberent display of flags by Americans

Happy Fourth of July!