456. THE WYETHS by un'Americana a Venezia

While I was visiting the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. for the first time last week, a lady guide pointed out a painting behind a chapel altar done by Newell Convers "N.C." Wyeth (1882-1945), renowned classic book illustrator whose work the guide had loved as a girl.  Newell was the father of the more famous Andrew Newell Wyeth (1917 -2009), the painter of "Christina's World," that compelling image of a young woman seated on the grass in a windswept field, her body leaning, practically yearning, towards a house on a hill.  The first time I saw "Christina's World" (1948), I fell in love with it.  Much later I learned that the subject, Christina Olson, the artist's wife's friend and later a frequent model for him, was long unable to walk.  In the picture she is looking at her own home in Maine, the Olson House.  The guide told us that until November 30 we could enjoy a show of Andrew Wyeth's "window pictures" at the National Gallery.  Ouch!  I had no time to see it.  "Christina's World" is housed at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and is not now on display in D.C.  However, another one of Andrew's masterpieces, "Wind from the Sea" (1947), is.  The same guide told us to check out the work of James Browning "Jamie" Wyeth, Newell's grandson and Andrew's son, an accomplished artist in his own right.  As soon as I got back to my desk, I began researching these three generations of Wyeths, starting with a look at the current show at the National Gallery called "Looking Out, Looking In."  Some critics hadn't cared for it.  Reading reviews published in May, 2014, I soon discovered that some of them thought Andrew Wyeth was boring.  Cold.  Two-dimensional.  Even depressing!  They simply don't understand him, I'm afraid.  They can't find too much depth in his Southern Pennsylvania and Maine farm scenes, his animals, his buildings and stark landscapes.  They don't see the textures in his tempuras and the varying shades in his browns, whites, greys, dull blues, greens and yellows.  They don't detect the detail he captures in tempera and watercolor.  They want rich colors, excitement, movement, maybe even some noise!  Surely, they would prefer his Helga paintings, intimate portraits kept secret by Andrew for years in order that he not offend his wife.  Anyway, what some critics seem to want, obviously, are the lively, heroic illustrations of Newell who once criticised his youngest child and best student, Andrew, for not using a varied palette and adding more life to a picture.  Newell said of "Turkey Pond" that it needed more color, some geese passing overhead, a hunting dog or a rifle in the subject's hand.  Respectfully, Andrew explained that it wasn't the scene that mattered to him, it was the man himself, the rear view of him walking in tall grass.  Much recognized and awarded with degrees and prizes in the United States, Andrew was a serious artist whose work drew large crowds in his lifetime.  In 1977 he was even inducted into the French Academy of the Fine Arts, becoming the second American artist since John Singer Sargent to be admitted.  In 1978 the Soviet Academy of the Arts elected him as an honorary member, too.  In an interview, Andrew once said, "I want the pictures to be the personality, not me."  He also said, "The less you have in subject, the better the picture is."  Andrew's son, Jamie (born in 1946 ), debuted at the age of 20 with a show in NYC.  The next year he presented a striking portrait of John F. Kennedy and was received as a talent advanced beyond his years.   As was true for his father and grandfather, Maine exerts a strong influence on Jamie's work.  He lives and paints on the island of Monhegan.  In an interview, Jamie has said, without apology, "I'm a very boring person.  I have no hobbies, really.  All I do is paint.  That's all I want to do."  After his father's death, Jamie once had a dream in which he was walking on a cliff above a stormy sea off Monhegan.  Two figures approached him.  He suddenly realized they were his grandfather and his father.  Off to the side, he said, Andy Warhol was watching.  It was terribly exciting, he said, a tableau, a "little world he created."  His father, and his grandfather before him, spent their lives creating worlds.  Images to inhabit.  Sensations to be experienced.  Where?  In the only place there is when it comes to painting:  In the eyes of the beholder.  UN'AMERICANA A VENEZIA