The Four Seasons of Life – Youth: "The Season of Love"
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," "Youth" (the print here showing a young couple in summer), "Middle Age", and "Old Age" represented the ideals of daily life in rural, middle class America.
In this sentimental romantic scene, a young woman, with her dark hair in ringlets, gazes longingly at a young man as they walk arm in arm along a shaded country lane. At right, a field, filled with tall wheat, symbolizes fertility; in the background, a church with a steeple hints at marriage and a life of piety. Two four-line stanzas of a verse are imprinted beneath the image: "Life's summer comes, and ripening like the grain, / New aims and hopes our youthful minds inspire; / Then Love repeats his his story o'er again / And lights within us his celestial fire. / Around us all the landscape seems more fair, / more bright the sunshine in the skies above, / As hand in hand, and heart to heart, we share / the sweet mysterious power of youthful love."
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.
