The Parasol

Traces of Impressionism can be seen here in the brisk brushstrokes and vivid colors. Richard Miller was a member of the Giverny Colony of American Impressionists in France, a group inspired by the famous resident of Giverny, Claude Monet. Miller is known as a figurative painter whose subjects are primarily young women posed in decorative interiors or beautiful gardens. The bright and colorful landscape surrounding the woman here alludes to nothing beyond itself. Miller believed that “art’s mission is not literary, the telling of a story, but decorative, the conveying of a pleasant optical sensation.”