Call of the Flute (The Love Call)

Additional Information

Call of the Flute, painted in 1908 and exhibited extensively thereafter, stems from the artist’s abiding interest in the customs and ritual aspects of the lives of the natives of Taos. Native American courtship—its music, secrecy, sacredness—appears in a number of his canvases, though few have the scale and offer the innate aesthetic pleasures of this work. Echoing the agrarian myths of Ancient Greece—think of Pan playing his pipes—the young man seduces the maiden with the music of his flute. Shyly, she considers the proposition his melody frames. Couse deftly handles this secluded glade, the rocks, the latticework of branches, adapting pointillist technique to make the paint shimmer. But this is an ongoing tug of amorous war. The path, the wedge of sky, and the small pond divide the man and woman. He might have to dig deeper into his repertoire. Call of the Flute appears to be framed in an original Couse frame. These wide, deeply carved frames were fabricated for Couse, after his own designs, by either Henry Schultheis or L. Vigor in New York.

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Please note that the first unframed photo is most accurate for color. Framed photographs are to show the frame and are not color corrected to the painting.

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