Catalogue Entry
On occasion, Johnson painted boys and girls together. Most notable were his scenes of street musicians. During the 1870s Italian immigrant children earned money for their families by playing musical instruments in the city streets; such children were known as “slaves of the harp” [See John E. Zucchi, Little Slaves of the Harp: Italian Child Street Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Paris, London, and New York (McGill-Queens University Press, 1992)]. —PH
Hills, 2021: There are five figures in this painting: although attention is drawn to the two youthful musicians who dominate the scene, there is a young white girl leaning into the scene at the right who seems to be admiring the music, a younger Black girl in the shadow at the left, and a Black youth with a hat on leaning against the wall in the center back. Johnson may have intended the actual musicians to be from Italian immigrant families, since strolling children musicians often with harps were part of the urban scene. [See John E. Zucci, Little Slaves of the Harp: Italian Child Street Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Paris, London, and New York (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992).] Such a racially integrated scene—however one wants to interpret it—was unusual for the time.
The color image provides an excellent opportunity to study Johnson’s techniques: of scumbling, that is, dragging dry paint over a partially dried painted surface; of outlining figures; of handling surfaces such as stucco, leaves, and ground; and of using bright flat highlights.
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