Pomona

Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees, orchards, and the harvest, is depicted in this 1900 canvas at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Hassam's characteristic fusion of classical subject matter with his Impressionist figure style. The work belongs to a group of allegorical figure paintings in which Hassam engaged with academic subject matter while treating it with the light-drenched outdoor technique he had developed for landscape and urban scenes. Pomona offered a suitable subject for a garden or orchard setting, allowing him to combine figure and landscape in a single composition.

The figure is treated with a lightness of touch that absorbs her into the atmospheric surround rather than presenting her as a classical ideal distinct from her setting. The outdoor light models her form through the same broken-color technique Hassam applied to pure landscape, dissolving the traditional distinction between figure and environment.