The Last Rays

Charles Harold Davis spent ten years in France, and this painting stems from his time there. It depicts the marshland in Fleury-en-Bière, a commune in north-central France near Barbizon. Though the scene might record a specific place, the subject illustrates the universal beauty of nature. Davis has communicated his deep reverence for the landscape in its infinite, expansive presence. The blue sky engulfs most of the picture, and the low horizon brings to mind earlier Dutch landscapes. A large cloud burst floats slightly off center. It is one of the most arresting renderings of clouds ever to be painted. Admired for his abilities to illustrate clouds, Davis even wrote an article, "A Study of Clouds," a manual of sorts for students. Easily missed is a rower in the lake dead center, engulfed and overshadowed. The picture is balanced in its depiction of the sky, clouds, water, and land. It was admitted to the 1887 Paris Salon, where it garnered an honorable mention.

Charles Davis hailed from Amesbury Massachusetts and studied art at the Boston Museum School of Art. His father was a schoolteacher, and the tuition at the Museum School was a struggle. In 1880, Davis received the patronage of a local businessman in Amesbury, who was so impressed with his skills that he sent him to Paris with one thousand dollars in his pocket. Once in Paris, Davis entered the Académie Julian under the instruction of Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1836 – 1911) Gustave Clarence Boulanger (1824 – 1888), both classical figure painters. When Davis left Paris for the Barbizon region, he began to embrace landscape painting. After his time in France, he returned to America and settled in Mystic, Connecticut. Legend is that he selected Mystic after an intense survey for the ideal climate and topography for his mode of artistic expression. The town suited him well, as he produced around nine-hundred paintings while he stayed there. He was popular with students whom he taught, and even married one of them, Frances Thomas, a few years after his French-born wife Angѐle Lagarde, died.