Entire of itself
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne, Meditation XVII, 1624
The painter Andrew Wyeth died yesterday, reminding me of the first time I saw 'Christina's World'. I was about 8 and I saw a tiny reproduction of the painting in a Reader's Digest compendium which belonged to my father. I related immediately to the child who was isolated from her alarming looking home. What was her expression? Was she worried or was she happy? In fact Wyeth's subject (if not his model) was Christina Olson (1893-1968) who may have had polio. The Olsons were friends of Wyeth's wife, and he had a studio in their house in Cushing, Maine for 30 years.
Christina lived there all her life, shunning medical intervention, and refusing the description of 'crippled' which people tried to apply to her. Wyeth painted her with what may now seem like mawkish poignancy, crawling back from a visit to the family cemetery where she herself is now buried. Wyeth's striving for a pathetic effect is very plain in his sketch for the painting.
Andrew Wyeth was part of a continuing dynasty of artists that began with his father. The Reader's Digest text describes Wyeth as 'financially the most successful painter working in America now'. A review in Time describes 'Wyeth's problematic legacy'. Like the Scottish painter Jack Vettriano he is a little too popular and certainly much too meticulously figurative to meet with mainstream critical approval.
What strikes me now about 'Christina's World' is Wyeth's hugely accomplished ability to evoke a sense of place. But it's a place that is unreal and unattainable. The same alluring emptiness and isolation is in his last works, but without the hard-edged light and insinuating seediness of Edward Hopper with whom he has so often been compared.
-
Multichannel News Comcast Is Launching a Netflix Competitor Wall Street Journal By SAM SCHECHNER... Read Full Story »
