Title (for Lamia)

Will Hicock Low · 1885

Medium

Black and gray gouache, heightened with touches of white gouache, on cream wood-pulp laminate board

Original size

45.4 × 35.9 cm (17 7/8 × 14 3/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

Low's delicate study for Lamia captures the eerie, dreamlike tension at the heart of Keats's poem — a woman caught between the serpentine and the sublime, rendered in silvery tones that feel both otherworldly and intimate. Will Hicock Low was among the most accomplished American painters of his generation to train in Paris, absorbing the academic rigor of Carolus-Duran's atelier before returning to bring that continental refinement to illustration and fine art alike. His work in gouache was particularly assured — he used the medium not as a shortcut but as a vehicle for tonal subtlety, building atmosphere through layered grays and precise white highlights rather than colour. This preparatory piece for Lamia shows that discipline in miniature: every mark is purposeful, the restrained palette amplifying the mythic mood rather than limiting it. Low was a close friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrating several of his works and traveling with him in Europe — a friendship that speaks to the literary sensibility woven through Low's visual practice. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Low's controlled gouache tones into the richer, more luminous language of oil paint, preserving the quiet drama of the original while giving the image the depth and warmth that makes it a lasting presence on the wall.