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Lecture 2:

Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.

Okay, so much for grant wood and his painting, American gothic. Now let’s talk about one of my favorite artists, Andrew wife. I assume at least some of you have seen wise painting, Christine, as world. That’s the painting with the woman lying in the grass looking at a house in the distance. Paul?

Yeah, I have my grandmother has a print of it up in her living room. I’ve seen a couple Andrew wire things he painted like a lot of rural scenes. Right?

That’s right. For example, uh, Christine, as world is set at a farmhouse, um, Christine, as world took a long time to paint, and for a while, Wyeth was unhappy with it. Let down because when he hung it in his living room, just like Paul’s grandmother, nobody who came to his house said a word about it. He thought it was a failure. But then in 1948, he sold it to a New York art museum. And it quickly became one of the most talked about works there. Some of the curators at this gallery weren’t thrilled. They preferred European modern, I not American. But Christine, as world really resonated with many people in a powerful way.

So wife wasn’t disappointed for long.

Probably not. But it’s a funny thing about wife. Critics have never agreed about his work. Some really like it. Some really don’t. In fact, an art historian named Robert rosenblum, well, one time he was asked who he thought were the most overrated and the most underrated artists of the 20th century.

Let me guess wife and wife.

You got it.

Some of my colleagues think Andrew wiles, a genius.

But if you took a big stack of art history books, you’d find that some of them don’t even mention him.

I hope this isn’t too far off the track. But could you tell us a little bit about how he got started, like his schooling and how he first you know became wellknown?

No, no problem, Susan.

I’m always interested in that too. Actually, his father and c Wyeth taught him to paint. NC. Wyeth was an illustrator and painter and a very established artist in his own right. He he didn’t give Andrew formal training when he was a kid, but when he was about 15, he started teaching his son the technical aspects of drawing and painting. N c was impressed with some of Andrews water colors. And that wasn’t a given. I mean, n c was actually pretty critical of some of his sons work. Uh, but he was impressed with these water colors and showed them to an art dealer he knew who exhibited them in New York city. That was around 1937, I believe.

That’s when Andrew started attracting a lot of attention about a decade before Christina swirled. Um, and then by the 1960s, in the mid sixties, some highly regarded magazines were naming him things like America’s preeminent artist, which was a double edged sword in a way. Uh, it confirmed his popular appeal.

You know. But what was going on in the art world in the 1960s.

Paul? Well, artists were starting to move away from realism kind of to more abstract art. And why it seems more like a realist.

Well, I think there are traces of abstract expressionism in his paintings. But yeah, he’s seen more as a realist. So some new artists sort of used him as a target, calling him old fashioned, which he kind of was. Lots of artists were getting into these new abstract, surreal techniques. And they saw realism as behind the times. So it was easy to pick on wire th and his fairly reali stip. Ick shuns of rural scenes. He stood for the things other artists wanted to change.

So what do you think? Well, you should form your own opinions next week. But let me say this. He was very popular. So if you were a painter at that time trying to make a name for yourself, and another artist was constantly getting all the glory and the money, how would you feel?

Well, I might not share other people’s enthusiasm. Jealous? I guess.

So that’s something to keep in mind when you read his contemporaries. Comments.

You have to put it all in context. Uh, next class we’ll look at Christine as world in more detail. And there are few other paintings that I think are important. And maybe you’ll have a better idea where wires critics were coming from.

from Rome to the Middle East to South Asia……