Frank Weston Benson

These are preliminary studies for the murals that Benson painted in the Library of Congress in 1897. The final works, allegorical representations of the four seasons, are framed within elaborately sculpted roundels on the vault spanning the south corridor. The construction and embellishment of the library coincided with America's growing interest in mural paintings for both public and private buildings. In the same year that Benson painted Autumn and Spring, both Joseph Lindon Smith and John Singer Sargent were awarded commissions to paint murals in the Boston Public Library. The balanced compositions of Autumn and Spring reveal Benson's academic training. The graceful, mannered poses of the figures, the diaphanous drapery, and their placement close to the picture plane evoke the work of the Pre-Raphaelite artists in England. Benson's refined use of color and texture also anticipates the late 19th to early 20th century Art Nouveau style as practiced in America. The allegorical figures Autumn and Spring achieve an intimacy similar to that of the many portraits Benson painted of his family in Dublin.