Vespers

The focus of this painting is the way light plays across different surfaces. Light slides across the church wall in patches of thick paint, and dissolves the glass windows into beautifully mottled tones of gem-like color. Vespers, the Christian early evening prayer service, is depicted here in an Egmond-aan-Hoef, Holland church, where artist Gari Melchers relocated and taught other American painters during the summer.

The parishioners, seen in the bottom third of the painting, are carefully given three-dimensional shape. Though American Impressionists like Melchers were interested in the effects of light, they were never as willing as their French counterparts to allow light to completely dissolve.