"I prefer Winter and Fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of Winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."
-Andrew Wyeth
It's the time of year when sooner or later I am reminded of these paintings, this kind of vision.
Andrew Wyeth spent much of his life moving back and forth between Pennsylvania and my homeland, Maine. And so, being the continually occasional Mainer myself, I feel a particular draw toward the landscapes, seasonal evocations & stark substance of these canvases.
For those who don't know, the Wyeth family represents a legacy of great artwork. Beginning with the masterful storybook illustrations of Howard Pyle - his mentoring of and bequeathment of craft down to N. C. Wyeth - and on to his son, our present hero, and finally on to his son, James Wyeth.
(Incidentally, a lot of stuff by Pyle and N.C., can be found at Golden Age Comic Book Stories.)
My family and I had the distinct pleasure of seeing a number of work by this entire clan at the Wondrous Strange exhibit at the Farnsworth Art Museum's Wyeth Center in Rockland, Maine back in 1998.
It was totally thrilling to see work by all these gentlemen "in the paint". It really stayed with me. Especially the stuff by Andrew.
Look at this face:
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