Still Life
Bridges’ oil paintings are far rarer than her watercolors, and mostly date to the 1860s. This example, from 1870, marks a transitional moment in her career, as she would soon turn to watercolor almost exclusively. The oil’s freshness—the seemingly just-picked violets and ferns bear a trace of brown earth—exemplifies Bridges’ commitment to depicting natural elements with immediacy and intimacy, what Richards described as ‘the voice of nature speaking in the idiom of art.’
Artwork Details
- Title: Still Life
- Artist: Fidelia Bridges (American, Salem, Massachusetts 1834-1923 Canaan, Connecticut)
- Date: 1870
- Culture: American
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 6 5/8 × 6 1/4 in. (16.8 × 15.9 cm)
Framed: 10 1/4 × 9 7/8 in. (26 × 25.1 cm) - Credit Line: Purchase, John Osgood and Elizabeth Amis Cameron Blanchard Memorial Fund, 2023
- Object Number: 2023.263
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing
Audio
4034. Fidelia Bridges, Still Life, 1870
KATHIE MANTHORNE: This is not just any flower arrangement.
Fidelia Bridges, she's an amazing gardener, so she's actually thinking about what grows at a certain point in time and how she might convey that love of nature that she has to the viewer.
NARRATOR: Katherine Manthorne, professor emerita of art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
KATHIE MANTHORNE: Earlier artists would combine different types of blossoms for the visual effect. They looked well together, a rose with a tulip or something else. But these flowers did not necessarily all grow at the same time, or even in the same place. They were an artificial composition.
NARRATOR: Bridges was interested not just in creating a beautiful composition, but in being “true to nature,” depicting plant life as it appears in the natural world – such as the appearance of the fern under the shifting fall of light.
KATHIE MANTHORNE: Fidelia Bridges depicts ferns in combination with violets. There are some purplish ones, bluish and with a few little sweet white blossoms towards the center. It looks so fresh. You can see the roots with the brown soil.
NARRATOR: Bridges drew early inspiration from the natural beauty around her, particularly the landscapes of her native Massachusetts and the garden she cultivated at her home in Connecticut.
KATHIE MANTHORNE: Critics at the time even said that as they walked by her pictures, they could almost smell the fragrance of the flowers, standing in front of them. I would encourage someone to look closely at the picture to look at how she applies her brush and paint to this tiny picture. The touch is so delicate. The petals and the leaves, they almost seem to lift off the page.
To me it's magical.
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