“Wyeth had seen Christina Olson, crippled from the waist down, dragging herself across a Maine field, “like a crab on a New England shore,” he recalled. To him she was a model of dignity who refused to use a wheelchair and preferred to live in squalor rather than be beholden to anyone. It was dignity of a particularly dour, hardened, misanthropic sort, to which Wyeth throughout his career seemed to gravitate.”You think my color theory teacher could’ve clued me into the meaning of this shot a little sooner. Instead, he would mention poker games he had with the likes of Pollock and de Kooning, (supposedly a cheating son of a bitch). Until I read earlier about his passing, I never knew the real story behind that image, instead thinking all this time that she was just looking in that direction because Wyeth wanted her positioned that way, as if she was contemplating the scene.
Now I know. I can’t say if he was a cheating son of a bitch or not, but here’s to you Andy.
Tags: Christina’s World, Andrew Wyeth
2 comments:
Before today, I had never known the Christina Olson story. And now I think the painting is somewhat diminished.
It’s enhanced for me because now I don’t think she was just frolicking in the fields.
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