Andrew Wyeth, the modern artist who defied the modern art movement with haunting realistic paintings, died Friday. The art world didn’t know what to do with him. I like this tribute:
Andrew Wyeth, who died today at 91 at his home in Chadds Ford, Pa., was the great problem of American modern art. He was a problem first because he so completely refused to be modern in any terms that the art world cared about or could stomach. Long after it was no longer fashionable or even permissible to practice a flinty, granular realism, Wyeth went on making pictures with the kind of brushwork that specified the world in almost molecular detail. That his technical capabilities were so apparent only made it more annoying to some critics that he wouldn’t turn his back on them. Virtuosity of that kind was something that we almost wanted to get off the table, an embarrassing reminder of pleasures that painting had to shed if it was to move forward into the brave new world of Modernism and everything that came after.
An exercise in Wyeth’s honor. What do you see in “Christina’s World” and what meanings do you see in the painting?
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