One of the great things about the internet is you can find an image of just about any work of art ever made. This is also one of the bad things about the internet, because people decide why should I go to a museum when I can just google it? Well, because a few pixels spread across a computer screen is not the same experience as standing where the Master stood as he/she applied the paint to the canvas.
The National Art Gallery in Washington, DC has a collection of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings and sketches having to do with windows and doors and the like. Most of the paintings are in the area of 20×30 inches with one or two larger pieces. All of the paintings have mundane subject matters; a bench, a sink, a bucket, and a tattered curtain blowing in the wind all get starring roles.
And yet, the images are haunting and beautiful.
I like these paintings. I like them a lot.
But in order to get to the Wyeth Exhibit, you have to walk through endless galleries filled with old Masters of one sort or another. Massive canvases measured in feet instead of inches, subjects include gods and mountains and larger than life sized portraits. Huge statues and tapestries. And the over the top architecture of the National Gallery itself. By comparison, most of Wyeth’s work brings to mind the Magic Brush of William Alexander school of art creation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Art is such a subjective matter, for example, I’m not a fan of primitive art and there is very little current art I have any interest in. I love Impressionists and modern Realists like Wyeth. If you happen to be in DC, this is a collection of paintings well worth exploring.
