Andrew Wyeth is Dead | Eastern North Carolina Now

Andrew Wyeth May Have Passed But His Art Will Live On

    When I was much younger, back in the early 1970's, and trying to find my way in this world of good and bad art, music and movies, I searched for living artists of quality to guide me as I sought my own path, and I discovered Andrew Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth was already middle aged and had produced some of his best work, including but not limited to; Christina's World, Evening at Kuerners, Master Bedroom, Karl and Winter 1946.

    Winter 1946, a self portrait of when Andrew was a boy running in a brown field of dead and dormant grass a short distance from where his father, N.C. Wyeth, was killed when his stalled car was hit by a train, now hangs in the North Carolina Museum of Art. It was the first of the Wyeth original works, along with Sea Dog and Weatherside that I had viewed. Seeing his original work in his trademark medium of egg tempera was awe-inspiring for an impressionable young artist. I have always sought showings of Wyeth's original work, and when I have traveled, on many occasions, I have enjoyed their stark realism of contrasting pale colors absorbed in rich tones.

    One such occasion was when I took two of my children to a broad measure of his work at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. A majority of Andrew Wyeth's work, exhibited in the multi-storied, renovated 19th century gristmill, are his watercolors - some are studies of his larger works made in egg tempera, while many are stand-alone subjects. Hanging in the Andrew Wyeth Gallery is Roasted Chestnuts, an egg tempera study of American nostalgia in the warm rich tones of a cold winter's day. Also hanging in the Brandywine is Evening at Kuerner's, one of the many important works using the Kuerners and the Kuerner's farm as subjects, and is yet another Wyeth painting, in watercolor complemented by dry brush, that uses the dark, rich tones of his trademark self imposed limited range of colors. Wyeth chooses, rather, to discover the broad range of colors within that narrow palette of handsome earth tones, that lend to his work the somber acknowledgement that another day is done, and ultimately so will we suffer the same fate.

    Evening at Kuerners: Above. Like Evening at Kuerners, one of Andrew Wyeth's favorite subjects was the southeastern Pennsylvania countryside as epitomized by the simply titled Pennsylvania Landsacape: Below.



    In intimate description of his choice of palette and medium of egg tempera, Andrew Wyeth once stated, "it has a cocoon like feeling of dry lostness - almost a lonely feeling." For me, Wyeth's warm earth tones and near absence of daylight takes me to a place in my dark conscious moments, where I find reflection a necessary component to moving forward in life. It's like when folks enjoy the mournful plaintive wail that is blues music, and, on occasion, are asked why. They often answer, "Because it makes me feel good." Maybe for many of us regular folk, who enjoy Wyeth to the point that he is often known as "The Painter of the People," he fulfills our need to remind us that life is at times stark and reflective, and we best keep our eye to the future because we all have an end point.

    Winter 1946 influenced me greatly in my high level of regard for the great painter. This painting, like the two examples above, is egg tempera on panel, and presently hangs in the North Carolina Museum of Art: Above. The Carry is also egg tempera on panel: Below.



    For me, he was an intuitive counterbalance to abstract "modern" art that was so popular with art heavies and critics in most of the twentieth century, and on a whole was much better reviewed than realists such as Andrew Wyeth. As brilliant a painter as he was, it is well documented that many critics, many who aspired to their own popularity, used Wyeth as their whipping boy. Sadly, Andrew was in many respects sensitive to their comments, once admitting, " If they hate it, it’s a bad thing, and if they like it, it’s a bad thing. An artist has to be ingrown to be any good."

    Working with geometric shapes or splattered paint on a canvass was so popular with critics when Wyeth was in his prime. Today, the neoexpressionist sculptures that resemble, well ... junk, are often very popular with critics now. Thankfully, there will always be great artists, like Andrew Wyeth, that will forge a populist following by the sheer talent represented in their work. The hordes of regular folks and real artists, who find inspiration in, and appreciate the individual subtle messages locked within the measures brush strokes of one of America's five greatest and most important artists of the last 300 years.

    This article is provided courtesy of our sister site: Better Angels Now.
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