Washington, D.C., was home to Georgia Mills Jessup, and she knew exactly how to capture the magic of her native city.

I, for one, love a rainy day in the city. Give me a sturdy umbrella and a solid pair of boots, and I’m good to go. It turns out that rainy days also make for great paintings. If this piece isn’t enough proof for you, might I direct you to Gustave Caillebotte’s famous Paris scene, or maybe Childe Hassam’s painting of New York’s Fifth Avenue. 

This story of this painting’s creation sounds like something we’ve all experienced. Slogging through the traffic of a rainy night in her car, Jessup found beauty in the scene that awaited her at the intersection of 14th and H Streets NW in Washington, D.C. Jessup captured the qualities of the night lights, which appeared to her like stained glass through her car windows. She was so captivated by the scene that she recreated it many times in a variety of mediums, including collage and watercolor, in addition to the oils that she used in this version of the work.

The brilliance of this scene is that it is both abstract enough to be any city, yet also specific enough to point to an exact location in D.C. For some hints, check out the signs that peek out among the painting’s abstractions. The Trans-Lux signs refer to a movie theater located near H Street, one of the other identifiable signs. A beloved landmark, the Trans-Lux was named for its rear-screen projection, which allowed the theater to keep its house lights on, as people were always cycling through. In the days before feature films became popular movie theater attractions, theaters like the Trans-Lux showed newsreels and shorts that played on a loop. It’s a good thing Jessup captured this magical scene in 1967 – the theater was demolished in 1975.

Another element that appears amidst the abstractions are the shadowy figures in the lower right corner. These figures with their backs turned to us are a play on the Rückenfigur, anonymous people that an artist places in a setting to help the viewer imagine being a part of the scene. Artists as different as Caspar David Friedrich and Glenn Ligon have utilized the Rückenfigur as a device for communicating a shared experience.