Passage IV

Andrew Wyeth’s Inspirations

How do artists come to paint pictures in the way that they do? Part of the fun of getting to know a piece of art rests in the thinking we do about each artists' process. What was the source of inspiration? Did it come in a single flash of insight, or evolving?

In his autobiography, twentieth-century American painter Andrew Wyeth wrote about the variety of sources that inspired his works. For example, close friends, aware of his desire for new subjects, sometimes invited him to prowl around their houses in rural Pennsylvania and Maine. One such visit led to his discovering a striking sight in a neighbor's attic; an incredibly tall old man asleep on a vivid quilt. In his painting Garret Room, Wyeth wanted to capture the royal appearance of that man as he lay asleep.

Other times, arresting images lighted Wyeth's imagination—such as the strange expression on his dog's face as she lay in a patch of moonlight or the beautiful craftsmanship of hay wagons. Wyeth admitted that once he was so fascinated with a neighbor's monumental old house that he studied details on each board of the house's siding. This house appeared in the painting Weatherside.

Even more intriguing are the instances to which Wyeth attributed the finished product to chance. Once, driving home after long hours painting a scene of snow-covered apple trees, when he spotted a brightly colored newspaper insert blowing across a hillside. Wyeth knew at once that this was exactly the bold element of his quiet painting of apple trees needed.(56)

Sometimes the source of inspiration was a mystery, to Wyeth himself. His ideas came from something deep and unspoken that it made him want to get his paintings just right. More often, though, Wyeth could identify and even years later have recalled the light, sound, person, or place that was the source of inspiration in his paintings.