This quaint painting of Cecilia Thaxter’s venerated garden is as pretty and pastoral as can be.

But it shows nothing of the suicide, trapped spirits, and impolite realities of art as capitalism that really made the Isles of Shoals what they were.

The fact that flowers grow at all on those rocks in the Gulf of Maine is a minor miracle, otherwise known as the luxury of having way too much time on one’s hands. This little paradisal view of late summer blooms and sun-soaked days can make you feel nostalgic for summer beach trips that you never really had as a kid.

But the garden wasn’t just Thaxter’s passion, it was also one of her businesses. Her hubby owned the big hotel on the island, but she also ran her home as an exclusive B&B. She’d sell bouquets and boutineers to cottage guests for many an attractive penny. There were two ways to get invited. 1. Be a promising artist, writer, or intellectual. 2. Be mad rich and looking to spend some $$$. Thaxter was possibly the most entrepreneurial poet the world has ever seen, she’s the one that suggested young Frederick Childe Hassam drop his first name in favor of his more mysterious and exotic middle name.

On top of capitalism’s tyrannic cogs, the Isles of Shoals is home to all kinds of other dark goings-ons. Thaxter once pulled the drowned body of one of her guests from the pond, an apparent suicide. The islands are said to be haunted by many a marooned and murdered spirit. There’s even a shoal called the Devil’s Dancefloor, you know, just to set the mood.

Typical Hassam though, he only painted the quaint and pretty side of the island, and had exclusively nice things to say about Thaxter’s little kingdom, “I spent some of my pleasantest summers…[and] met the best people in the country." 

So if your favorite pastime is ignoring how awful life is, Hassam is your artist and this is definitely your painting.