The Four Seasons of Life – Childhood: "The Season of Joy"
Not on view
Over the centuries, the seasons have been used as a natural metaphor for the cyclical nature of life. After the disruption of the American Civil War, Currier & Ives produced a series of prints, titled "The Four Seasons of Life," which offered promising images of domestic contentment, prosperity and serenity. These images of "Childhood" (the springtime scene shown here), "Youth," "Middle Age", and "Old Age" represented the ideals of daily life in rural, middle class America.
In the foreground of this sentimental, country scene at springtime, three young girls and a reclining boy (who holds a bunch of flowers) are grouped with their pet lamb, which is being fed by one of the girls. At the left, four children play beneath a tree; beyond, there is a house and garden enclosed by a fence. On a grassy knoll at the right, a cluster of ewes and lambs graze. In the central background, there is a splendid vista of a valley with a lone house and mountains beyond. Imprinted beneath the image is a verse (by an unidentified poet) that reads: "In life's sweet springtime, childhoods happy hours; / Thoughtless of care and from its burden free, / We roam o'er pleasant fields bedecked with flowers, / And wake the echoes with our childish glee. / Joining the lambkins play the birdlings song / Our pleasure pure as gold without alloy, / With merry laugh we gaily bound along; / And fear no future in the present joy."
Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life and its history. People eagerly acquired such lithographs featuring picturesque scenery, rural and city views, ships, railroads, portraits, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. As the firm expanded, Nathaniel included his younger brother Charles in the business. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law) was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907.
