Daylilies and Landscape
Artist
Raymond Han
(American, 1931 - 2017)
Date2005
MediumOil on linen
DimensionsFramed: 40 3/8 x 40 in. (102.6 x 101.6 cm)
ClassificationsPAINTINGS
Credit LineGift of Raymond Han and Paul Kellogg Foundation
Object number2022.12.4
DescriptionStill life with pink flowers in a glass vase, a postcard, and an envelope on a shelfOn View
Not on viewLabel TextThe artist Raymond Han, who lived in Cooperstown, titled
this painting Daylilies and Landscape, but it is actually a still
life, or an image of a group of objects. The unusual title
reminds viewers that a landscape can mean different
things—a picture on a wall, a well-kept garden, the
wilderness and its landforms, or simply the outdoors. Han
shows this confusion of meanings by including a postcard of
a landscape on the table in his painting.
In the later 1800s, American landscape painting and
gardens became so popular that the use of the word
changed. William Frederick De Haas’ painting to the left of
Han’s artwork is the kind of easily collectible painting that
encouraged people to think of landscapes as objects. Helen
Munson Williams, one of Munson’s founders, bought De
Haas’s Solitude in 1880, the year the artist died.
