Lycius, Look Back, and Be Some Pity Shown

Will Hicock Low · 1885

Medium

Gray and white gouache, with touches of brown gouache, on cream wood-pulp laminate board

Original size

16.5 × 34.8 cm (6 1/2 × 13 3/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Drawn from John Keats's narrative poem *Lamia*, this 1885 gouache by Will Hicock Low distills a moment of mythological tension into luminous, restrained tones — a quiet drama rendered in silver and cream. Low was among the most accomplished American painters of his generation to train in Paris, studying under Gérôme and Carolus-Duran before returning to the United States as a leading figure of the Aesthetic Movement. His work was shaped by a deep love of classical literature and the idealized figure tradition, and this piece reflects that sensibility: the handling of gray and white gouache on a warm board gives the image a sculptural delicacy, as though the figures exist somewhere between fresco and dream. Low had a particular gift for translating the mood of Romantic poetry into visual form without illustrating it too literally. The painting is held in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it stands as an example of Low's facility with works on paper — a medium he used with the same seriousness he brought to large-scale oils and murals. Our hand-painted oil reproduction interprets Low's gouache in a richer, more tactile medium, preserving the soft tonal drama of the original while giving it the weight and presence of a canvas meant to live on a wall for generations.