And Lycius' Arms Were Empty of Delight

Will Hicock Low · 1885

Medium

Brown and white gouache, over traces of black chalk, on cream wood-pulp laminate board

Original size

45.1 × 35 cm (17 13/16 × 13 13/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Rendered in delicate brown and white gouache on a warm cream board, this 1885 work by Will Hicock Low captures a moment of mythological grief with quiet, almost tender restraint. Low was a New York-born artist who trained in Paris under Jean-Léon Gérôme and became one of the more refined voices of the American Aesthetic Movement — a painter drawn to classical subjects, soft tonalities, and the mood of poetry rather than narrative drama. His gouache technique here gives the composition an intimate, sketch-like quality that feels closer to a private study than a public statement, which only sharpens its emotional weight. The title draws from John Keats' "Lamia," the moment when the enchantress vanishes and Lycius is left holding nothing — arms full of absence. Low had a well-documented affinity for Keats and the English Romantic poets, and several of his works from this period treat similar themes of beauty dissolving at the edge of reality. The original is held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it remains a quiet highlight among the museum's nineteenth-century works on paper. This hand-painted oil reproduction translates Low's subtle tonal range and elegiac mood into a format made to last, bringing one of the Aesthetic Movement's most poignant small works into your home.