“Here comes the sun,…and I say, it’s all right…”

Umbrellas, brollies, parasols—call them what you will: whether they’re being used to keep the rain off or the sun out, or just as a decorative accessory, in art, they’re always appealing to me.

Many artists I admire have depicted the sun streaming through the transparent fabric of colored parasols. Our local museum here in Raleigh has a famous Frieseke painting and we have this same print hanging in our guest room, along with a couple of other figures with parasols. Monet painted women with beautiful parasols in the sunlight as well, emphasizing their ability to shade.

Sargent sometimes depicted friends whom he asked to don costumes with elegant parasols. He invited his guests to sprawl out on the grassy knolls near streams while he painted the magic in the cascading light.

And Richard Miller, another artist I enjoy, has romantic images of women in undulating fabrics and rich, graceful parasols that create beautiful reflections and shadows on the women carrying them. What's not to like about these?

“It ain’t no use putting up your umbrella ‘til it rains.” (-Alice Caldwell Rice)