Yes, I like stumps. And trees. They are subjects I have
trouble resisting when I come across them with my camera at hand. I am not
alone in this fascination. Andrew Wyeth immortalized a downed tree on Ground
Hog’s day in 1959 at the Kuerner farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
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| Ground Hog Day - Andrew Wyeth 1959 |
It is not just a painting of a log. Everything has an extra
dimension to Andrew Wyeth. Especially on the Kuerner farm. In his biography of
Wyeth, Richard Meryman notes that the log is poised to drive through the window
like a great battering ram. “Jutting from its end are vicious splinters, like
wolf fangs.” Wyeth loved working an
implied menace into his images. The juxtaposition of that menace –- outside, with
the domestic internal setting is actually Wyeth’s interpretation of the
complete Kuerner household at the time. The roughness of Karl and the fragility
of Anna. The wall paper and supper setting reflect the presence of Anna Kuerner
in her domestic role, and the single knife indicates that the table is set for
Karl, as it was his habit to only eat with a knife. Even the wolf-fang
splinters on the log bring another element of the household into the painting –
the Kuerner pet; an apparently ill-tempered German Shepherd. Other paintings
and studies of the log done in preparation for this image actually include the
pet.
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Wild Dog – Andrew Wyeth 1959
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In his biography the log is identified as a cedar log. But
it was actually a gum tree. Wyeth sketched and painted many versions of both
the stump and the tree before it ended up in “Ground Hog Day.”
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Gum Tree- Andrew Wyeth 1958
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A gum tree in Chadds Ford, PA? Go figure! Everyone knows to
go to Australia to see gum trees. Okay, the gum tree here is in no way related to the gum trees of Australia. But this gum tree provides an opportunity for me to connect to another great artist, the Melbourne painter, Fred R. Williams. He
is an Australian national treasure. My introduction to Williams’ work came at “The
Art Gallery of Western Australia” in Perth. They were exhibiting a collection
of his paintings of stumps. Caught my eye.
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Stump I - Fred R. Williams 1976
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Stump IV - Fred R. Williams 1976
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Stump V - Fred R. Williams 1976
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Big oak – Water Color – Andrew Wyeth 1978
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This is my opportunity to add a couple of my own favorite
logs and stumps.
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Lyme Park - Peak District, UK – Kevin Imper - August 2015
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Dales Way - Grassington, Yorkshire Dales UK - Kevin Imper - July 2015
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If you scroll back up and look at Fred Williams’ first two
stumps (Stump I and Stump V) and look closely at the backgrounds, you can see
that Williams has subtly tilted the plane of the picture. It is subtle in the
detailed stump portraits, but is a very common feature in his imagery. Like in
this one:
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Burnt landscape Upwey No 1 - Victoria Australia – Fred R. Williams 1968
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Again, it is not obvious, but the artist has put himself
into an elevated point of view. In some of his works he also tilts the horizon,
making it look like he is viewing as a passenger in a banking plane. Compare
the “Burnt Landscape” image above with this one of Andrew Wyeth’s:
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Snow Flurries – Tempura – Andrew Wyeth 1953
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Lifting the horizon by raising the viewer’s point of view is
a technique that Andrew Wyeth often employed as well. Note the similarities in
the following examples.
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Lysterfield – Fred R. Williams 1965
(Sold at Christies in
London for $1.18 million in 2013)
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Hoar Frost – Andrew Wyeth 1995
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Evening Sky Upwey - Fred R. Williams
1965
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Long Limb – Andrew Wyeth 1959
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For five years, from 1951 to 1956 Fred Williams worked and
studied in London, not too far from Francis Bacon’s haunts in South Kensington.
After his return to Melbourne he turned his attention to the question of how to
interpret the flat Australian (very non-European) landscape creatively on a two
dimensional canvas. Tilting the landscape up against the picture plane was his
unique answer, a technique also used by Aboriginal artists. So, rather than the
European tradition of foreground/background separation showing perspective,
there is very little in his work to indicate horizontal recession, often only a
horizon line. The horizon might be just a line separating earth from sky or a line
of trees. Andrew often combined an elevated point of view along with foreground
objects; like in “Long Limb.”
Another Chadds Ford Link to the Antipodes
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, is also home to Andrew Wyeth’s
son, Jamie. He has been farming and painting there since his 1968 marriage to
Phyllis Mills. In 1970 he painted a portrait of a pig he “sort of rescued’
named Den Den. Looking at Den Den you can see that this is no cuddly pet. She
bristles with stiff scratchy looking hair, having much in common with the dry
straw on the barn floor around her. This is no generic pig. Jamie, like his
father, does not paint generic subjects. Although a benign enough pig, the
size, brute strength, and prickly hair, illustrate that intimidating Wyeth
edge, that can be found in both Jamie’s and Andrew’s work.
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Portrait of a Pig – Jamie Wyeth
1970
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Here is a photo of Jamie with Den Den, ca 1970.
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Jamie Wyeth With Den Den – Chadds Ford 1970
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So here is the antipodean connection: This past February I
was a close neighbor of this friendly pig in Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands, in
Northland, New Zealand. Like Den Den, my neighbor was a little off-putting due
to her size and rather scary dental work. The similarities were striking enough
that I christened her (or him) Den Den for the duration of our stay.
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Portrait of Den Den of Kerikeri – Kevin Imper - February 2016
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