Water-Lilies. Red and Green Pads. Study from Nature

John La Farge’s lyrical depictions of water lilies are a signature motif within the artist’s impressive career, which included paintings and watercolors as well as celebrated designs for stained glass windows. On the present work, James L. Yarnall writes, “Water-Lilies. Red and Green Pads. Study from Nature, dated 1883, shows three blossoms in various states of opening. They float within a riot of exotic pads in dark water, one showing a faint white reflection in the red pad that has turned upside down…these works convey the best qualities of La Farge as a watercolorist. With their sinuous liquid patches, close up perspectives, and seemingly unstudied painterly effects, they betray a mastery of the medium that ranks La Farge among the leading practitioners of watercolor in America at the time.” (Nature Vivante: The Still Lifes of John La Farge, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1995, p. 50)

Kathleen A. Foster explains of this period of the artist’s career, “Beginning in 1878-79 and continuing sporadically until his departure for Japan in 1886, La Farge would produce the most beautiful watercolors and some of the finest floral subjects of his career. As one critic remarked in 1884, ‘It is on these modest watercolors that his fame, in the future, promises to rest.’…These floral paintings are decorative in the most pleasant sense. As such, they offered encouragement and established a standard of excellence for every flower painter who showed in, or visited, the watercolor exhibitions after 1878.” (“John La Farge and the American Watercolor Movement: Art for the ‘Decorative Age’,” John La Farge, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1987, p. 140)