I don't know about that wife surrogate. See Jerry Saltz' review/obit at www.artnet.com
We need to put Wyeth's New England Puritanism into some American context. It belongs to a protestant tradition that was anti-catholic -- at least passively -- one that was centered in a strong materialism supported by the Biblical Word. Thus the deep attachment to the land, the particulars of the workday in nature, the tradition of stark values. The magical and mysterious practices of Catholicism, with a spiritual center outside of America, in the aftermath of heavy immigration from Catholic Europe seem to be opposed to the values and ideals we see in Wyeth's work. I'm just scratching at a topic that could encompass much of the American aesthetic. WC --- On Thu, 1/22/09, Michael Brady <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: The good sort of sentimentality > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, January 22, 2009, 12:09 PM > On Jan 22, 2009, at 1:06 PM, William Conger wrote: > > > The "crazy girl on the grass" was > Wyeth's neighbor and sometime model who had polio > > Actually, the model was his wife, but Christina was the > neighbor with polio. (I gleaned that from one of the > obituary new pieces.) She wasn't "crazy," as > Miller put it so unsentimentally. > > > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > Michael Brady > [email protected]
