RSW's Diary Comments

An illustration of the area we believe RSW sat

• There is no entry for this painting in the painting diary. That is not uncommon for paintings made before 1925. Woodward did not begin to compile his painting diary until the early 1940s; he did so mostly from memory, and it only includes roughly a third of all his oil paintings. There is no records of his pastels.

Editor's Note:

We have two painting, very similar in appearance with some obvious differences and others more subtle. The most apparent is the time of year. This painting is obviously the month of May because May is in its name. Because the brushwork is very similar, we suspect that Woodward made the canvas, Silent Evening (seen below), the same year in November. We wonder if it was meant to be a comparison in contrast. Spring is the artist least covered season because the thaw makes travel very difficult for him and November one of his favorite months. CONTINUED BELOW ⮟

Silent Evening, c. 1923

⮝ The illustration above blocks the area we believe Woodward painted. Our reasoning is simple, the hills are not big enough to be further west and just big enough to be further east. Also note on the map we captured there are flat spots meeting fairly strong slopes. There is also the right spot of a zig and zag of the river with a matching ridge line.

⮜ To the left, is another painting of the same subject. Both canvases look as if they could have been made within a month or so of each other. However, Woodward did not sit in the exact same spot for both canvases. Silent Evening appears to be farther back than The River in May. If you enlarge the image of Silent Evening you will see illustrations showing where The River in May begins in relation to Silent Evening