Old House and Garden, East Hampton 1898

Childe Hassam made this painting, "Old House and Garden, East Hampton," with oil on canvas. Look closely at the material reality of the house: it’s made from countless shingles. These were likely produced in a local mill – the kind of small-scale industry that was crucial to the economy of a place like East Hampton, before it became the exclusive resort we know today. The labor of creating the house, the work of making the garden, all that productive energy is captured here. Hassam was working in the mode of Impressionism, which called for loose brushwork. You see that, of course, but also his decision to give the shingles real presence. It’s almost as if he wanted to paint the house as a textured object, not just an image. So, while this may appear at first to be a simple landscape, Hassam actually asks us to consider the work, the making, and the material conditions that lie beneath its surface.