Neapolitan Song — Daily Hue for June 23, 2026
Joseph Stella · 1929 · Smithsonian American Art Museum
Hidden color: Deep Vivid Turquoise (#006746)
About this puzzle
Stella believed that every day should "begin and end [with] the painting of a flower." The exotic plants he sketched in the Bronx Botanical Garden resurface in this imaginary scene of the Bay of Naples, drawn with the precision and love of nature that Stella absorbed from Italy's Renaissance painters. The tips of the palmetto leaf radiate across the picture plane like a visible, unfolding wave of sound. Stella had moments of homesickness, when images of his homeland came to him as clearly as when he first arrived in America in 1896. Here, it is as if the Neapolitan song is reaching across the sea, bridging the distance between Stella's old home and his adopted country.Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 38 3/8 x 28 1/4 in. (97.5 x 71.7 cm.)