I worked and worked and worked on just
the field that swell occurred to the
field it's like building a house and
then living in it
I built the ground thinking of her
and then when I put it it was right that
pink like faded lobster shells that you
find on the shore there Andrew Wyeth was
31 when he made christinasworld in
Cushing Maine and it's become one of the
most recognizable American paintings of
the 20th century there is unquestionably
a great power in it and it's a power
that is more accessible to the average
person than some of the prevailing
experimentation of that period at least
it is for me that doesn't mean that it's
any better or worse than a painting by
say Jackson Pollock from the same year
only that being realistic and dramatic
Christina's world more easily fits the
shape of our memories our dreams our
fears and cravings in other words it
resembles a story okay so what's the
story Andrew Wyeth wants to tell with
this painting what we can see is a woman
lying in a field looking up a gently
sloping hill to a house and barn in the
distance the composition is elegantly
designed the first thing you notice is
the woman her shape and her gaze draw
you diagonally across the canvas to the
home in the upper right from there your
eyes slip down the hill top to the barn
then to the boundary where the tall
grass meets the short which curves
forward and back down dropping you off
at the woman again this constant
movement from foreground to background
intensifies the three dimensionality of
the painting already felt in the careful
work Wyeth puts into the swell and curve
of the field beyond this there is a
perfect asymmetrical balance between the
woman and the shapes and the top third
of the canvas these are design features
that communicate a feeling of serenity
immediately without us even knowing why
at first like a bass note that's too low
to hear but influences our experience
nonetheless and yet as we begin to look
closer at Christina's world a few things
start to work against this column for
example the colors as in many of wyah
Spain Tings are muted reflecting the
particular Austin
of New England landscapes a common image
in early American art and thought even
the woman's dress which is the most
striking color on the canvas is a
subdued pink like faded lobster shells
as Wyeth describes it the next thing
that stands out is the woman's posture
especially her thin and contorted arms
the way her hands grip the earth with a
kind of nervous energy they are the only
hint of what might be going on in her
head you know facing her away from the
viewer creates an absence that in our
interpretation of the scene over the
story were desperate to fill so we put
ourselves in her place
but that doesn't quite dispel the
feeling of inscrutability of not knowing
that charges the painting with tension
there is more we can know about the
woman in Christina's world if we want to
christina is after all a real person ana
Christina Olson who lived in the house
from the painting with her brother
Alvaro Olson suffered from
charcot-marie-tooth disease a
neuromuscular disorder that robbed her
of the use of her legs she refused to
use a wheelchair however preferring to
crawl using the strength of her arms
I saw her crawling out a little truck
guard and she had next to the house one
day and it dawned and I went home that
night a member there was a small party
at being given that the Jameses house
and a member in the middle of party I
rushed out into the room in the studio
that I had paid it in and kept my
material and made a quick notation of
society of Christine the field the house
in the background Olson was 55 at the
time of the painting but if the figure
and that pink dress looks more youthful
that's because Wyeth used his wife Betsy
for a model of Christina's torso only
the arms betray her real condition to
Wyeth Christina's world wasn't the
portrait of someone at just one point in
time it was a painting of Christina's
whole life her weakness but also her
strength and vitality and above all the
deep lifelong connection she had to this
old family house in Maine and the land
surrounding it you know by painting a
symbolic representation of that
action by setting it in perpetual motion
with his composition by laboring for
weeks and weeks on the grass and the
shape of the field
Wyeth I think was looking for a secret
in nature his work descends from the
tradition of Emerson and Thoreau who
found in the natural world the basis for
a new American philosophy Emerson writes
in his essay nature crossing a bare
common in snow puddles at twilight under
a clouded sky without having in my
thoughts any occurrence of special good
fortune I have enjoyed a perfect
exhilaration I am glad to the brink of
fear I become a transparent eyeball
I am nothing I see all I often feel if I
could only be not there to paint just a
pair of eyes would be so marvellous if
you could just I could just do something
and disappear and just be terrific in
his painting Andrew Wyeth becomes
Emerson's transparent eyeball he sees in
the nature around him even in the barren
landscapes of New England something
profoundly real as an artist he helps us
to see it too and it's a reminder
frankly I need living in a city living
online it's easy to go about your day
and see nothing at all now getting back
in touch with nature isn't a promise of
happiness as the tensions in Christina's
world are careful to show but there is I
think a piece of us in the land in the
trees in the sky and a sense of
wholeness waits for us when we can
remember not to forget it
I was there at the right move Roger if I
hadn't been there but you see how
important it is to be in the surrounding
and breathe it then it happens if you're
lucky and you're perceptive enough to
catch it hey everybody thank you so much
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