Spring Rains

Victor Higgins Spring Rains from around 1924 is an oil on canvas that exemplifies the Canadian-born American painters approach to the New Mexico landscape, in which the specific topography and atmospheric conditions of the American Southwest are rendered with a combination of Realist observation and Impressionist technique that distinguishes the Taos Society of Artists. Higgins, who was a member of the Taos Society of Artists and one of the most accomplished painters in the Taos colony, brought to the New Mexico landscape the same atmospheric subtlety and chromatic richness that characterize his figure paintings, producing works in which the landscape of the Southwest is rendered as a series of color sensations rather than a topographic description. The spring rains of the title, which transform the arid landscape of northern New Mexico with their brief but intense precipitation, provided Higgins with a subject that allowed him to demonstrate his mastery of atmospheric effects, creating a painting in which the moisture-laden air softens the contours of the mountains and the wet earth reflects the colors of the sky. The oil on canvas medium, applied with the broken brushwork and chromatic richness of Impressionist technique, creates a surface in which the landscape is rendered as a visual experience of color and light rather than a record of a specific place. The date of around 1924 places this painting in the period when Higgins was producing some of his most accomplished New Mexico landscapes.

Higgins landscapes are significant contributions to the tradition of New Mexico painting and the Taos Society of Artists, and Spring Rains demonstrates the combination of atmospheric subtlety and Impressionist technique that makes his work significant. The painting influenced the development of Southwestern landscape painting.

An oil on canvas by Higgins from around 1924 depicting New Mexico landscape under spring rains, combining Realist observation of the Southwest with Impressionist broken brushwork and chromatic richness in the Taos Society tradition of atmospheric landscape painting.