The Water Garden

Childe Hassam, The Water Garden
Metropolitan Museum of Art

The closest I can get to something like this is when I go to the arboretum. This looks like a lovely wild field with all of nature's variety on display.

Happy Independence Day

July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth. ...

In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.

Happy Fourth of July.

President Ronald Reagan, What July Fourth Means to Me, 1981

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the State;
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace,
March of a strong land's swift increase:
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverent awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong,
To ward her people from foreign wrong;
Pride and glory and honor, all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

(Henry Holcomb Bennett)

Childe Hassam, The Fourth of July, 1916

Worth a Thousand Words: Celia Thaxter's Garden

Celia Thaxter's Garden, Isles of Shoals, Maine - Childe Hassam
Source

August Afternoon

Childe Hassam, August Afternoon

 

Fifth Avenue in Winter

Childe Hassam, Fifth Avenue in Winter

 

August Afternoon

 

August Afternoon, Appledore, Childe Hassam

Green Gown

Childe Hassam, Green Gown

Flower Girl

Flower Girl, Childe Hassam

Flower Store and Dairy Store

Childe Hassam, La Bouquetiere et La Laitiere, c. 1888

I like the contrast of the obvious boredom (or is it complacency?) of the dairy clerk versus the earnest concentration of the kneeling florist. There is something about the way Childe Hassam portrays the scene that makes me feel the cobblestones beneath my feet and the slightly chilly, humid air.

Couch on the Porch, Cos Cob

Couch on the Porch, Cos Cob, Frederick Childe Hassam

Doesn't this look heavenly?

Worth a Thousand Words: Geraniums

Geraniums, Childe Hassam
via Arts Everyday Living