Wild Asters

Artist Dennis Miller Bunker (1861 - 1890)

Date1889

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions25 × 30 in. (63.5 × 76.2 cm)
Framed: 38 5/8 × 43 3/4 × 3 3/4 in.

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LinePromised Gift to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas

Signedl.r., in dark brown paint: D M BUNKER / 1889

On View

On view

Label TextThe burble of the running brook; the warmth of the luminous sun; the aroma of the swaying asters—Dennis Miller Bunker's painting of a lush marsh feels alive and palpable.

Bunker spent the summer of 1888 in Berkshire, England, painting outside in the open air with fellow artist John Singer Sargent. Here, Bunker learned about and began to explore the fast, loose brushstrokes and bright color palettes of the Impressionists. Bunker returned home and began to paint his American environment—including this Massachusetts meadow—in the Impressionist style.

El murmullo del caudal del arroyo; el calor del sol radiante; el aroma de los ásteres que se mecen con el viento... La pintura de Dennis Miller Bunker, que muestra un pantano exuberante, parece viva y tangible.

Bunker pasó el verano de 1888 en Berkshire, Inglaterra, pintando al aire libre con su colega John Singer Sargent. Allí, Bunker aprendió y comenzó a explorar las pinceladas rápidas y sueltas y las paletas de colores vivos de los impresionistas. Bunker regresó a casa y comenzó a pintar su entorno en Estados Unidos, como esta pradera de Massachusetts, al estilo impresionista.

Bunker died a young man, the year after he painted this fluid, lush view of a verdant Massachusetts meadow. Wild Asters is one of four paintings recording the effects of transient light and the changing of the seasons on the same grassy expanse. The landscape is landlocked and skyless, a tightly cropped view of a serpentine brook that bisects a field of green. The shimmering water is in direct sunlight, painted with a combination of blue, red, and green pigments. The fresh, fast strokes of pinkish-white that form the asters lining the brook further enliven the scene. Bunker’s painting embraces the changeability and emotional intensity of nature through its swirling rhythms, blurred edges, and flood of light.