Charles Webster Hawthorne

By the 1920s, Charles Webster Hawthorne’s typical representation of Renaissance altarpieces began to evolve. While his time in Italy inspired his exploration of the Madonna and Child subject, influences closer to home aided in his evolution of the subject. The present work, along with others he painted during the 1920s, were heavily influenced by the paintings of Abbott Handerson Thayer (1894-1921), a friend of Hawthorne’s teacher, George de Forest Brush (1855 –1941). Hawthorne was inspired by Thayer’s use of textured surfaces and his representations of the Madonna and angelical figures. In the present work, Hawthorne seems to have been contemplating the same themes, including the use of Mother and Child as subject while still capturing the figures in an idealized interpretation. Furthermore, the canvas is anchored by an altarpiece type frame which is original to the work.