Maine Art — the Wyeths

by John P. Flannery

WYETH HOMAGE. I was in this open Maine field and I had this impulse — I don’t know where it originated — of catching Holly sitting in the field looking toward a house in the near distance. (Seriously).

Truth be told — this is set near the Olson house in Cushing, Maine, a place of inspiration for Andrew Wyeth who took expansive artistic license with Christina’s challenging physical condition (never assuredly diagnosed, not even to this day) to show a lithe younger appearing woman but in a quite difficult, almost tortured, pose, fitting to her condition, as Christina had to crawl and couldn’t walk from place to place by the year that Wyeth thought to make her the focus of this iconic painting.

Wyeth removed the trees on the crest of the hill near the house, and broadened the distance between the houses — for dramatic effect. If you look closely at the painting, however, you see the effect of her illness on her hands, Wyeth’s nodding acknowledgment of her suffering, and the portraits that Wyeth did of Christina show that he was capturing her spirit, rather than making a realistic portrait; some often criticized his style — that is — for being too realistic — when this effort was quite symbolic in its apparent “reality”).

We also took a look at the House as it is today and it remains true to Wyeth’s image of the Olson House.

Nearby is a grave site where Christina is buried.

Not too far away in the same series of graves, Andrew Wyeth is buried. His wife survived him until recently.

Andrew Wyeth’s dad, NC Wyeth, was a brilliant illustrator, and his grandson Jamie used to like going into the nearby barn where all the paints and canvases and all of the props, swords and more could be found. This is the elder Wyeth’s rendition of Homer’s Odysseus resisting the Sirens.

Jamie is the third in the line to revel in the arts. Whether it’s the most natural pig you ever saw, or a profile of JFK.

We would have admired Andrew Wyeth’s work in any case. But his portrait o Christina who crawled everywhere, and, after the fact, us trying to imagine what that was like gives you some idea of her will to live and empathy for her and others who suffer such disabilities. But for those who think it was only a copy of what Andrew observed, nothing could be further from the truth.

JPF