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Winter 1946
Andrew Wyeth • Painting, 1946, 79.7×121.9 cm
Description of the artwork «Winter 1946»
October 1945 was a watershed moment for Andrew Wyeth, both in his life and in his work. A terrible tragedy occurred in the family, which took the lives of two of its members at once: the artist's father, 62-year-old Newell Converse Wyeth and his two-year-old grandson, nephew Andrew. The car in which they were traveling collided on the rails with a freight train. The force of the blow was such that the elder Wyeth was crushed into a cake along with the car, and the younger was thrown onto a mound and he died from a broken neck.
Newell Converse was a renowned illustrator and Andrew got a lot of inspiration from him to paint. He was delighted with the albums with reproductions of paintings from the library of his father, and when he was fifteen, he began to teach him the skill of the artist. The sudden death of a parent forced Andrew to reconsider his views on work and on human existence in general. "Previously, I was only a skilled watercolorist - a lot of brush strokes and fills- he recalled. - When my father died, I woke up with a desire to prove that his upbringing was not fruitless, useless - now I tried to do something serious ... For the first time in my life, I drew, clearly realizing why and for what ".
The painting "Winter of 1946" was Wyeth's first work in tempera after the October tragedy. He said that he worked on it all winter. The hill depicted on the wooden panel overlooks the place of the death of the father. The artist lamented that he had not managed to paint a single portrait of him during his lifetime, but, according to him, that hill became his portrait: Wyeth "could practically feel how he breathed."
And although the composition in the picture is not particularly intricate, he could not feel its completeness for a long time, until one day, while walking, he saw Allan Lynch, a local boy running down the hill near the accident site. Wyeth decided to keep him company: they came across an old baby carriage and rolled it down the hill, dying with laughter. This boy was the first to get to the scene on the day of the terrible disaster, and did not allow wild dogs to run away to the smell of blood. The artist added his Allan to the painting, and finally felt that the work was over.
Although Wyeth's landscapes have never been a riot of colors, "Winter of 1946" looks restrained and monotonous even to him. A muddy brown field of dried grass extends over almost the entire space of the painting, broken only by tiny white patches of snow and a pair of uneven tire tracks. It seems that time has stopped, all feelings are numb and spring will never come. Even the figure of a running young man does not add liveliness to the oppressive atmosphere of "Winter": his face seems to be distorted by a grimace of pain, and his look is not childishly serious. Wyeth wrote that Allan's hand, as if limply floating in the air, personifies his confused, wounded soul, unable to find peace.
The author: Natalia Azarenko
Newell Converse was a renowned illustrator and Andrew got a lot of inspiration from him to paint. He was delighted with the albums with reproductions of paintings from the library of his father, and when he was fifteen, he began to teach him the skill of the artist. The sudden death of a parent forced Andrew to reconsider his views on work and on human existence in general. "Previously, I was only a skilled watercolorist - a lot of brush strokes and fills- he recalled. - When my father died, I woke up with a desire to prove that his upbringing was not fruitless, useless - now I tried to do something serious ... For the first time in my life, I drew, clearly realizing why and for what ".
The painting "Winter of 1946" was Wyeth's first work in tempera after the October tragedy. He said that he worked on it all winter. The hill depicted on the wooden panel overlooks the place of the death of the father. The artist lamented that he had not managed to paint a single portrait of him during his lifetime, but, according to him, that hill became his portrait: Wyeth "could practically feel how he breathed."
And although the composition in the picture is not particularly intricate, he could not feel its completeness for a long time, until one day, while walking, he saw Allan Lynch, a local boy running down the hill near the accident site. Wyeth decided to keep him company: they came across an old baby carriage and rolled it down the hill, dying with laughter. This boy was the first to get to the scene on the day of the terrible disaster, and did not allow wild dogs to run away to the smell of blood. The artist added his Allan to the painting, and finally felt that the work was over.
Although Wyeth's landscapes have never been a riot of colors, "Winter of 1946" looks restrained and monotonous even to him. A muddy brown field of dried grass extends over almost the entire space of the painting, broken only by tiny white patches of snow and a pair of uneven tire tracks. It seems that time has stopped, all feelings are numb and spring will never come. Even the figure of a running young man does not add liveliness to the oppressive atmosphere of "Winter": his face seems to be distorted by a grimace of pain, and his look is not childishly serious. Wyeth wrote that Allan's hand, as if limply floating in the air, personifies his confused, wounded soul, unable to find peace.
The author: Natalia Azarenko
