Review of Brandywine Art Museum

“The Waters of Wyeth Country”

The road narrows quickly at an old stone bridge. I continue south, perched between gray mossy rock outcroppings and a muddy meandering river lined with Sycamores. Marshes and fields roll away from the banks of the Brandywine in endless hues of brown. This is Wyeth country.

The Brandywine river Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania integrates regional culture, history, and nature into a composed experience. The building, a renovated eighteenth century gristmill, hugs the bank of its namesake waterway, the Brandywine River. Every design element orchestrates a deeply felt sense of place. From the entrance paved in herringbone patterned brick, to the galleries with plank wood floors and rough hewn oak beams, to the riverside path set off by mill stones and life-sized bronze sculptures of farm animals, every detail communicates the rich history of the area.

The museum structure combines colonial era architecture with modern design elements. The inside and the outside are a flowing continuum echoed by the lazy river. Each floor has a central lobby with curved floor to ceiling glass walls overlooking the river. The silent words of the land and water are voiced in a large tile mosaic of the entire Brandywine River watershed. Detailed discussions of the local ecology are offered in a display presented by the Brandywine Conservancy. This groundbreaking non-profit group, formed in the 1960’s, was at the forefront of open space preservation, water quality conservation, and greenway creation. They are responsible for the existence and administration of the museum. It is fitting that the local pastoral landscape that inspired so many artists also gave birth to a progressive environmental organization. The land and art are inseparable here.

Three generation of Wyeth family painters, as well as two centuries of artists who lived and worked in the local environs, are represented in the collection. The intimate gallery spaces are well organized by period and style. Exhibits offer a balance of permanent collections and special exhibits focusing on regional American art.

An entire room is dedicated to N.C. Wyeth, the patriarch of the clan. He moved to the area in the early 1900s to study with the famous illustrator Howard Pyle, and never left. Although he wished to be recognized as a skilled fine artist, N.C., is noted for his dynamic illustration work. Best known of his portfolio are serial graphics from such popular novels as Treasure Island, Robin Hood, and Last of the Mohicans. Large oil paintings from those stories adorn the walls. One has to see them in this format to appreciate N.C. Wyeth’s talent – an uncanny appreciation of gesture, tonal mastery, and an elegant colorist.

My favorite painting was from Cooper’s book: a moody depiction of two Indians paddling a canoe with a standing white man between them. The foreground is anchored with white birch trees on the bank of the river, while the canoe and its occupants seem to float in an ambiguous meeting of water and sky. The intensity of their expressions and solid figures balanced by the ethereal light is hypnotic. Another painting, Ben Goon Marooned, is another example of Wyeth’s subtle use of strong tonal and color contrast. A wooly man peers out from behind the base of a large tree in a dark forest; all we see is his profile, shoulder, and one arm lit by a crevice of light. The mix of purple hues in the foreground wonderfully balances the crack of yellow sky. The eldest Wyeth was a masterful painter; I believe he deserves recognition for the breadth of his work. These classifications artists are pigeonholed into can be limiting of their appreciation.

N.C. Wyeth’s son, Andrew, is one of America’s most recognized artists. Home schooled, and tutored by his father, he set a course in art at an early age. Growing up in Chadds Ford, and summering in Maine, set the lifelong subject matter of his regional art. Scorned for decades by an art establishment bent on movements like Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, this iconoclast was interpreted more widely later in his life.

A large painting of a sleeping dog in a barn with moonlight streaming through a window was my favorite. There is a strong use of the color cobalt blue throughout the interior, including a burlap sack the dog rests upon. The image plane is split down the middle with the interior on the right and the window gazing into a wetland landscape on the right. I consider a quote I once read by Wyeth stating that he saw himself as an abstract painter. How ironic that one of the most noted American realists actually considered his art abstract. This painting pushes the boundary of what many expect in a Wyeth.

Another favorite is the depiction of Kuerner’s farm. This scene, also lit by moonlight, shows a simple white farm house in the lower left corner with a single lit window balanced by a spring house in the upper right corner. A sparkling rivulet of almost pure white water emanates from the outbuilding and traces diagonally across the painting. A sense of mystery pervades such a common subject; a distinct non-sentimental wonder fills my mind. Does form define place or does place define form?

Most of Andrew’s paintings were executed in egg tempera. The quality of the brushwork laying complex hues of gray, brown, off-white, and black set the tone for most of the images. Dark shadows in old barns, touches of light on white washed walls, and undefined tangles of brush are common pictorial elements. Evidence of human presence, devoid of human presence, dominates many scenes. We see a dented tin cup, a table setting, or a crumpled bed. Like the landscapes, these elements go beyond the obvious.

Andrew had five children – three were painters. The best known is his son Jamie. He carried the tradition of creating strong imagery from the life around him based on solid fundamental skills. The most captivating image was a painting titled Draft Age. This half-body portrait executed in 1965 depicts a young man wearing a black leather jacket and dark sunglasses eyeing the viewer in a cocky pose. Black dominates the canvas, with highlights only on the face, arm, and metal zipper. It is at the same time the archetype “rebel” and a poignant snap shot of a certain person at a certain time.

Across the room hangs another Jamie Wyeth portrait. This one is a full body profile of a large pig in her stall. The animal is almost centered in the painting, the single focal point of perspective. You can feel the individual personality of this pig; she is a being posing for a portrait like you or I. The body is a mix of warm greens and purples overlaid on a wide range of yellows. The glowing color emanates the cheerful feeling of an early spring day.

I wander away from the museum thinking of the power of one family tied to one geographical location creating a heritage of art. Then I consider all the regional artists that influenced the Wyeths and the landscape and social fabric that molded those people. This museum connects one to the roots of America; a place outside the badgering drone of TV and strip malls – a place where things take time to grow and people take the time to take notice.