Wyeth Wind from the Sea

Wyeth Wind from the Sea

The Wind from the Sea, painted in 1947, is one of the earliest paintings of a window by Andrew Wyeth. It is about a scene from a ramshackle. The 18^th century poorly maintained house belonged to Alvaro and Christina Olson, who were neighbors of Wyeth in Maine during late 1940s. Wyeth painted the scenic depiction while looking over the immediate surrounding landscape as an incoming wind from the sea tattered and rustled the sheer curtain’s remains. It captures a summer moment when the artist opened a window in his room to allow for fresh air. The moment captured Wyeth’s attention as he was drawing an image of Christina Olson in her house. Thus, he quickly sketched Wind from the Sea on the same material (Knutson et al., 6). 

 Gusting wind blowing into the room makes Wind from the Sea alive and is characterized by an in-blown transparent tattered window fabric. Some diaphanous birds are also visible along the edges and they seem ready to get into the house through the open window. The birds are cheap and delicate to depict artist’s disappointment in the world of representational art. It is clear that Wyeth is trapped in a home that seems like a prison. The painting is not entirely representational or realist because the lacy curtain evaporates in an uncharacteristic manner at the bottom left of the image. In the age of irony and abstraction, the painter adopted a realist style of art, hence his extraordinary popular success.

Artistically, Wyeth contrasts the fabric with the window that appears solid and sturdy. The room’s interior, on the other hand, is dim as the walls blocks sunshine, while the outside landscape is bright and stark. The artist’s curtain rendering disintegrates into mere white paint streaks for a frayed representation. The fabric instantly turns into a scrim, especially if the viewer looks at it against the straight, hard lines of the window frame. It is easy to feel and understand with utmost certainty Wyeth’s goal of capturing a symbolic disintegration of a target far more profound than a breeze textile.

 There are no figures in the tree-lined view, but there is evidence of their strong sense of presence like in Wyeth’s other works. The viewer is led towards the sea by two worn tire tracks that run across the dirt. Viewers get an illusion that they are staring out of the window because of a tightly chopped window frame at the painting’s edge and the close vantage point. Wyeth’s piece of art is visually and emotionally monomaniacal and monochromatic.

The Wind from the sea is an iconic and classic example of Wyeth's paintings on landscapes, his choice of close vantage position, and depictions of windows. Over the course of his career as an artist, Wyeth produced more than 300 paintings themed on conceptual richness and formality of windows (Knutson et al., 8). Charles H. Morgan bequeathed Wind from the Sea and the three preparatory studies on it to the National Gallery of Art collection in Washington, making it the second painting by Wyeth to be displayed at the gallery after 1953 Snow Flurries.

Wyeth, who banished people and modernity from his paintings, moves the viewer away from his work into a world of thoughts and marvel on the value of art. It cannot be denied that his masterpiece leaves the viewer with a feeling of being shut out of the artist’s personal life, given the isolated and cold nature of Maine coast.

Work Cited

Knutson, Anne C, Christopher Crosman, and Andrew Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth: Memory & Magic. New York: Rizzoli, 2014:1-32. Print.