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I didn’t know until recently that summer has two start dates. In the northern hemisphere, meteorological summertime begins on June 1, while astronomical summertime — when the northern hemisphere is most tilted towards the sun — begins this weekend.
June 21 (it can fall within June 20 or June 22 in some time zones) is the longest day of the year, when we have sunlight that stretches late into the evening, when many of us are getting ready for bed. There are parts of the world where the sun will not set. I remember visiting Oslo a few summers ago and how disorienting it was to go to bed with the sun and wake up with the sun. Yet one of the reasons I love summer so much is the extended hours of daylight, and the way the season invites us to make the most of its radiance and warmth, calling us towards activities that remind us we can find joy in our work, in our play, and in our bodies.
The 1896 painting “Mending the Sail” by Spanish artist Joaquín Sorolla, housed in Ca’Pesaro Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna in Venice, shows five women and two men on a terrace mending a large sail. We can see the Mediterranean Sea in the background but it is the white fabric that fills the large canvas, its folds like small waves gathering around the legs of the people. One of the women faces us and is smiling broadly as she speaks to the person beside her. We sense that attending to this necessary task is a pleasant activity. The painting is full of shadows and light, and the light has a brilliance to it as it finds its way between branches, leaves and fences, and the open door.
I love how this work illuminates the scene of a community working together. Summer is a time for play and relaxation but the work continues for many people, all of us in some capacity. Sorolla’s painting reminds me that even work, when done in good nature with others, can be a source of simple joy. Here the figures are surrounded by blooming and seemingly fragrant flowers, dancing sunlight and, presumably, a cool wind coming off the sea. Work is presented as a moment of deep beauty. With enough imagination, we might see ourselves at the edge of the frame, holding the folds of the sail just out of view.
The French painter Frédéric Bazille was another master of light. In his 1869 painting “Summer Scene”, housed at the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge Massachusetts, eight young men in various states of undress lounging and playing beside a river. In the foreground, some of the men are in and around the water, while in the background a pair mock-wrestle and another man changes clothes.
There is an air of eroticism about this work that makes me think about the sensual nature of summertime, the heat, the way plant life is verdant and in bloom. I am thinking of eroticism not just in a sexual way but also in the manner that theorist Audre Lorde understands it in her essay “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” — as an innate ability to feel deeply and access new information about ourselves and the world. Lorde was speaking specifically to women but I think elements of this understanding can apply to everyone. Being attuned to our deep feelings is being attuned to a valuable source of knowledge. Summer is a season to enjoy our experience as living, breathing, sensual beings with the beautiful gifts of our senses that we so often take for granted. There are distinct feelings aroused by the sensation of river water on our skin on a hot day, or lying on scratchy grass, or hot sun rays beating down on us. These feelings remind us of our physicality, and to celebrate that physicality with one another and with the rest of the natural world.
The American painter Amy Sherald’s 2015 work “The Bathers” is a vibrant, colourful painting layered with meaning. Two Black women stand against a pool-blue background. One is wearing a red polka-dot swimsuit and has a white ribbon tied in a bow around her short hair. The other wears a lemon-yellow two-piece swimsuit and a purple swim cap with two flower heads on the side. The women hold hands and gaze directly out to the viewer as if to challenge any questioning of their right to joy, to representation, to leisure, to agency. The bikini-clad woman has one hand on her hip, a gesture that adds to her determined stance.
I love the title of this work because it reminds us that among the many paintings of bathers throughout western art history — Cézanne’s “Les Grandes Baigneuses” and Courbet’s “The Bathers” being just two of the most famous — very few have been of dark-skinned people. Titian’s 1550s painting “Diana and Actaeon” includes a Black woman but she is shown assisting one of the nude white female bathers.
It is only since the latter half of the 20th century that public and private swimming clubs in countries across Europe and in the US have been legally prevented from separating one group of people from another based on race, ethnicity, gender or class. In the US, racial segregation was outlawed in public swimming pools under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and in 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that people could not be denied membership to private swimming clubs because of race.
It’s notable that some of the activities we associate with the joy and freedom of summer have histories that are entwined with the denial of freedom for certain groups of people. And I love that art can remind us of the ways in which our choices as individuals and societies have both celebrated and suppressed our shared humanity. It helps to trigger our collective memories of past injustices, lest we repeat them, and invites us to consider that, even today, the way we engage with certain activities is dependent on where and who we are in society. But, while we shouldn’t dismiss the full reality of the world, I believe there is still room to celebrate the joy of the season: the brilliant sunlight, the inviting waters and an expanded sense of hospitality towards those around us.
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