The 11 best summers in art
As these evocative works of art demonstrate, summer is a time of joy, carefree abandon, and quiet contemplation. But don’t ask me why so many of them are naked. Let’s just blame the heat.
Edouard Manet, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863)
Hmm, what did we encounter here? Manet’s Lunch on the grass It is the symbol of a carefree summer, including a gentle dip in the afternoon. This friendly crew has found a shady spot in the forest: elegant men chatting about the latest Paris Saint-Germain match; The women are free and naked, and they look at us like this: “Oh, hello. Are you interested in our little party?” ; Grapes, figs and rosette bread are scattered on the ground and no one is even bothered by it. I wish I were this cool.
Joaquin Sorolla, El Balandrito (1909)
No one understands the splendor of summer more than a child who, with a sailboat in hand, turns the shallow areas of the ocean into his own sandbox. Inside SloopThe gentle lashes of Sorolla’s brush, the sun gliding calmly over the Mediterranean, bring home the unvarnished innocence of this entire scene. This kid is in a world of his own, at least until his sailboat inevitably gets swept away by the tides and the real waterworks begin.
Henri Rousseau, Dream (1910)
Reclining nude in Rousseau’s painting Dream We’re all sweltering through 40-degree days in our stuffy apartments, hallucinating the cool charm of a tropical rainforest. Beyond the bug-eyed tigers and pre-awakened snake charmers, you can still feel the humidity emanating from Rousseau’s fantasy, the singing of cicadas, the biting of mosquitoes, and perhaps even the sound of a waterfall gushing in the distance. Wear Nick Leon’s A Tropical EntropyLook deeply and disappear.
Georgia O’Keeffe Summer Days (1936)
Georgia O’Keeffe, mystical chronicler of the dim desert heat of the American Southwest, doesn’t fuck around when it comes to summer. That flesh-eaten skull Summer Days – symbolically soaring over ripe flowers, blue skies and angry mountains – reminds you of slipping, falling, slapping.
Max Dupain, Solar Oven (1938)
It’s been called Australia’s best-known photo, and its subject evokes summer better than any Instagram shot of an Aperol spritz at sunset: this is the legendary bronzed Aussie, with skin glistening with lotion, sweat and seawater. Even in high-contrast black and white images, you can tell this guy has a tan like a Real Housewife. And it’s durable, too: it won’t lie on a towel, let alone under a beach hut. Just a face full of golden sand, the real taste of summer.
Edward Hopper, Seaside Rooms (1951)
It turns out Edward Hopper didn’t just paint lonely salesmen and housewives eating steak and eggs in sad diners. His loneliness, as evocative as it was, extended into the summer. Seaside Rooms. The sun streaming through the front door is warm and touching, but there’s a more pressing question: Does this house hang over the ocean? There appears to be neither a porch nor a staircase. When you take a step out of that door, you fall to the bottom of the sea. And you thought your summer AirBnb was just a “short walk” to the beach.
Willem de Kooning Villa Borghese (1960)
Once, while walking through a de Kooning retrospective at the MOMA in New York, I thought: “I don’t understand this at all, I’m the stupidest kid alive!” And then, at some point, it clicked: you have to look at de Kooning as if you were reading a Richard Scarry children’s book that had fallen into the bathtub, or as if you were looking out the window of an airplane after just waking up from a six-hour nap. With just a few horizontal swipes of blue and green and a few vertical strokes of yellow and white, it somehow evokes summers in the Italian countryside. Give me a limoncello spritz!
Agnes Martin, Summer (1964)
There’s a meditative calm to Agnes Martin’s watercolor painting that you might optimistically call the promise of summer. In the midst of the busy holiday season, summer doesn’t quite feel like this yet: Instead, it’s red and spiky, like the Mall Santa you’re forcing your kids to pose with. But once the parties are over, Martin’s blue squares are the mood we want to dive into.
David Hockney, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972)
Of all the pool paintings done by David Hockney, this one is the most inviting. The sunlight rippling through that blue makes me want to grab my buoys and cannonballs. Less inviting? Your unimpressed partner, dressed in her prettiest pastel shades, stands at the edge of the pool and shouts: “Why are you still there? We have to be at dinner in 10 minutes!”
Sally Robinson, Beach Crossing (1976)
Almost as big as Max Dupain’s Solar OvenSally Robinson Beach Crossing evokes the typical Australian summer with hyperreal nostalgia. Specifically, the return trip from the beach to the local grocery store for Calippo after swimming. Fifty years later, the only thing that’s changed is the aesthetic: This picture is from the ’70s, I can hear Bon Scott-era AC/DC blaring from someone’s station wagon. But everyone knows that the best beach music today is Bad Bunny.
Wolfgang Tillmans, Lutz, Alex, Suzanne and Christoph on the beach (1993)
Military uniforms are worrying, but I think I know what’s in this photo of the Tillmans from the ’90s: it’s just a bunch of German punks who idolize Joe Strummer, huddled on the beach on a post-hangover leak (the polyamorous affection suggests MDMA may be involved, too). May your summer be spent in such delicate forgetfulness.
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