Deafening the Swallows' Twitter, Came a Thrill of Trumpets

Will Hicock Low · 1885

Medium

Black, gray and white gouache, over traces of graphite, on cream wove card

Original size

9.8 × 35.1 cm (3 7/8 × 13 7/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

This monochromatic work — rendered in black, gray, and white gouache — carries the hushed drama of a moment suspended between silence and sound, its title drawn from the world of Romantic poetry. Will Hicock Low trained in Paris under Carolus-Duran and Jean-Léon Gérôme in the 1870s, returning to America as one of the foremost figures of the American Renaissance movement. He became celebrated for his classically-inspired figure compositions and his gift for translating literary imagery into visual form. The restrained palette of this gouache is no limitation — Low uses the full range of cream card and deep shadow to build atmosphere with an illustrator's precision and a painter's eye. The work dates to 1885, the same year Low completed his acclaimed illustrated edition of John Keats' poems, a project that cemented his reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Low's subtle tonal gradations into the richer, more luminous medium of oil on canvas, preserving the stillness and compositional elegance of the original while giving the image a depth and presence suited to display.