Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Parrish produced this illustration for Eugene Field's beloved 1889 poem of the same name, and it appeared in the 1905 edition of Poems of Childhood, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. At that point in his career, Parrish had already established himself as the preeminent American illustrator working in a mode that fused Symbolism, Romanticism, and the meticulous surface control of Academic Realism into something distinctly his own: what critics would later call the Parrish Blue tradition, marked by an almost supernatural atmospheric luminosity achieved through his glazing technique of building up transparent oil layers over a gessoed surface. This painting sits at the center of that achievement. The architectural fantasy in the background, the dreamlike scale of the vessel against an impossible night sky, and the clarity of every edge within a softly glowing atmosphere are all signatures of Parrish at the height of his commercial and artistic powers. The work was enormously popular in reproduction and contributed significantly to Parrish's status as one of the most widely reproduced artists in American history during the early twentieth century.