Children Frightened by a Rabbit
ca. 1876
Two chubby, golden-skinned children huddle together in absolute terror, but the culprit is just a tiny, innocent rabbit sitting nearby. Albert Pinkham Ryder paints this scene with a dreamlike, almost mystical quality, surrounding the frightened pair with a dark, mysterious backdrop of blooming roses and twisted branches. Created early in his career around 1876, this piece hints at the moody, poetic style Ryder would become famous for as a precursor to American modernism. The heavy cracking on the surface tells the story of an artist who loved to experiment with layers of paint, often to the detriment of the artwork's longevity!
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