Art Appreciation
"If an artist loves his Art for its own sake, he will delight in excellence wherever he meets it, as well in the work of another as in his own."—Washington AllstonNo doubt Allston delighted in the excellence of his painting Hermia and Helena, which we feature today, his birth anniversary!
Hermia and Helena, heroines in William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, were close friends whose friendship was tested when they became rivals in love. Washington Allston underscores their intimate bond by painting them almost as one figure with only one pair of hands and feet visible, and sharing a single book.
Hermia and Helena, part of our traveling exhibition Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is on view at the Middlebury College Museum of Art in Middlebury, Vermont, through November 25, 2001.
Source: Gwen Everett. Young America: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).
Pictured: Washington Allston, 1779–1843, Hermia and Helena, before 1818, oil, 30 3/8 x 25 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program and made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, Catherine W. Myer, the National Institute Gift.