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Alarums and Excursions

Maxfield Parrish

1899

From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art

Impressionism Realism Late 19th Century

Dominant colour

Alarums and Excursions is a 1899 by Maxfield Parrish, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.

Who painted this?: Maxfield Parrish
When & what style?: 1899 · Impressionism
Where can I see it?: Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

A boy in armor stands over a giant, coiled snake, sword raised to strike. The scene glows with deep blues and greens, sharp edges, and a sky that looks like stained glass. This painting was one of nineteen illustrations Parrish made for a children’s book called *The Golden Age*. The story follows kids pretending to be knights—here, the artist turns their make-believe into something grand and dramatic. The details feel almost too real for a fantasy. If you like the way Parrish plays with light and color, look up chiaroscuro next.

The story of this work

Overview

Alarums and Excursions is one of nineteen illustrations the young Maxfield Parrish created for Kenneth Grahame’s The Golden Age, a children’s book published in 1899. In the chapter Alarums accompanies, the narrator persuades a friend to join him in a make-believe of Arthurian legends. Parrish depicted one of the boys in the midst of their playful fantasy, as he prepares to strike an enormous, coiled serpent. Parrish rendered the scene in crisp detail, using flat, delicate washes of monochrome ink, strong linear contours, and scintillating pricks of white gouache on the boy’s chainmail.…

Did you know?

Parrish employs a technique called sgraffito (“to scratch”) on the serpent’s tongue, producing its mottled texture by scraping away the upper layer of paper.

Read the full account in the museum source.