Japanese Lullaby

Japanese Lullaby (1903) by Alice Pike Barney reflects the sustained Japonisme that ran through American and European art from the 1860s through the early twentieth century. Barney's Washington home was a centre of cosmopolitan culture, and Japanese aesthetic influence — in design, in dress, in the staging of figures — permeated her social and artistic world. The title suggests a musical or lullaby subject rendered through the visual language of the Japanese aesthetic.

Barney likely employs flattened compositional elements and decorative colour relationships influenced by the Japanese prints that were widely collected among artistic circles of the period. The palette and handling may combine her French academic training with simplified, pattern-emphasising forms drawn from Japonisme.