Andrew Wyeth - a rural painter, a Realist among Contemporary artists.
Andrew Wyeth, who died today at the age of 91,
gave America a prim and flinty view of Puritan rectitude, starchily sentimental, through parched gray and brown pictures of spooky frame houses, desiccated fields, deserted beaches, circling buzzards and craggy-faced New Englanders (Michael Kimmelman in NY Times).
The
NY Times published an image of his
Winter, painted in 1946. But it's
Christina's World who remained his famous work:
she was Christina Olson, a person who was invalid (stiff from waist down) and was living by herself fighting bravely with her condition.
Andrew Wyeth - Christina's World, 1948
So, there is a dramatic narrative behind this painting; we do not know the story, of course, but there is a tension there suggesting the drama: we see the back of the woman and we feel that she's looking intensely toward the house; we feel her intensity from the way she is turned and the way she is keeping her head.
Was
Wyeth on all his works a Realist? Not exactly: we should look at his watercolors.
Let's take
Benjamin's House: says
Terry Teachout in
Wall Street Journal,
all narrative content has been stripped out of this bare, washy winter scene, leaving only the essentials: a wall, a window, a handful of branches. The result is a masterly little glimpse of the visible world, executed with self-effacing virtuosity.
Andrew Wyeth - Benjamin's House, 1955
Andrew Wyeth - Stop, 2008
(Contemporary Art)Labels: Andrew Wyeth
