Labels: andy stettler, art, art thou, art thou blog, barbara rosin, paint, painter, painting, video art

I reached the Brandywine River Museum at ten past noon. “Late,” I thought. I quickly called the museum’s Public Relations Director, Hillary K. Holland, to let her know I had arrived. I had come the day before but had to leave early due to another assignment. This time I needed photos.

I met Holland in the lobby and we immediately made for the elevator. From the museum’s transport centerpiece of spiral cement stairs and elevators hung a long “circus-like banner,” as Holland would put it, which advertised the “Seven Deadly Sins” exhibition. On the banner was the title of the exhibit in a wild, grotesque font. Beneath the title was a giant horrifying bird cawing at its audience in anger. I knew from which sin this bird had been painted.

As we stepped off the elevator and onto the third floor of the museum, we were greeted by Jamie Wyeth’s “Pig,” an image of a giant hog with an incredible texture of colors and strokes. Wyeth actually made the fat pig seem beautiful. I could stare at its wide gut all day, only to be frustrated that I would eventually have to blink. We continued round the center of the museum until we reached a short hallway. At the end, again, were these grotesque letters which read “Seven Deadly Sins.”

I pulled out my camera and asked Holland if there were any restrictions to what I could photograph. “No,” she said. She was very kind as she led me into the exhibit and explained a few of the paintings to me. I believe I was taking photos of “Inferno, Monhegan” when I heard a voice behind me. I turned and there he stood. His dark curly hair and aging, painter’s hands gave it away immediately. I quickly glanced at the video by D’Arcy Marsh in the other room to confirm. It was definitely him.

Holland looked at me, my face almost white by now as she said, “Andy Stettler, this is Jamie Wyeth.”

We talked only briefly. I asked him about a piece that portrays a flying gull whose wing has caught on fire, almost like a World War II plane during a dogfight. Wyeth said the gull was one of many that he saw while painting “Inferno, Monhegan.” I glanced at the piece and saw gulls flying around

the heap of smoke as if it were a beacon from hell. Wyeth said the gulls would fly so close that they would catch on fire. It seemed ironic to me that he had portrayed these suicidal scavengers as humans, that we could so easily remind him of these beasts who blindly flap into the furnace of death. The painting, with its dark sky, seemed like a nightmare.

Wyeth’s “Seven Deadly Sins” seems, rightfully so, like a series of this nightmare. Wyeth had found his muse for the “Seven Deadly Sins” collection while painting “Inferno, Monhegan.” At the same time he had become obsessed with drawing and painting these devilish gulls. He’s said on many occasions that most beach painters portray gulls as white doves, these beautiful angelic birds. In reality, Wyeth said, gulls are scavengers and who wouldn’t agree?

How many times have we cursed the woman at the beach who’s thrown boardwalk fries to the seagulls who then flap down, scare our kids and circle our towels for another hour? I’ve even seen a seagull swoop down and snatch a fry right out of someone’s hand as he was about to eat it.

But in terms of the seven deadly sins, what makes Wyeth so different from Chaucer or Dante is that he is not showing the human portrayal of sin but rather he is metaphorically revealing these gulls in an allegory of man.

In “Sloth,” the only piece in the series in which Wyeth has painted a human, we see a human leg lazily hanging from a rowboat. Above this leg is a flock of gulls savagely ripping from the body veins, organs, everything that makes that pile of skin human. This is a perfect reflection of what sloth can do to a human being. Laziness and carelessness devolve into uselessness. When we are immersed in sloth, we are no longer progressive, we become addicted to laziness and in certain terms are no longer human. Wyeth shows this by having the gulls rip away what keeps the human spirit alive.

I invite readers to travel to Chadds Ford and visit the Brandywine River Museum. The building itself is the first work you must examine. Then head up to the third floor and take a look at the work of Jamie Wyeth and the rest of the Wyeth family.

Jamie Wyeth’s

“Seven Deadly Sins”

is on display

at Brandywine River Museum,

U.S. Route 1,

Chadds Ford, PA 19317,

through Nov. 22.

Info: 610-388-2700 or

www.brandywinemuseum.org.

Labels: andy stettler, Art Matters, art thou, brandywine river museum, chadds ford, Jamie Wyeth

Labels: andy stettler, art thou, Bandywine River Museum, Jamie Wyeth

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I took this photo in 2007 when my family and I took a trip to Paris. My sister, an art history major at the time, gave us a full tour of the most important museum in the world.

I love this picture.

Incase you can't tell, that isn't a real person. I believe he's made out of plaster.

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