A Nod to Wyeth

A nod to Wyeth.

Sometimes as a way of doing preliminary studies I will make several versions of a painting as greeting card sketches. Often, that's all they will ever be, just explorations.

This 5x7 gives me an opportunity to play around with a bit of Wyeth metaphor in the imagery. Here's a list in case you haven't caught the implications on your own:

1. A colonial wrought iron candle stick holder. Something that would have been common at Chad's Ford during the Revolutionary War.
2. The candle is colonial style, too. 
3. Eggs, as in egg tempera, the medium for which Wyeth became known.
4. The jagged edges of the broken egg shells remind me of the jagged edges on a log of fire wood outside one of Wyeth's window compositions.
5. There is the window, of course, with the windows of the building outside peering in as Andrew might have done.
6. The autumn season was one of Wyeth's favorites as was the same limited palette I'm using here.
7. Andrew used a bit of underlying drama to create a certain amount of unease in his compositions. I have alternated symmetry and asymmetry to leave the viewer slightly off balance. The candle flame, almost but not quite touching the window handle causes a bit of visual tension.
8. And then there are the shadows reminiscent of the shadows on the ceiling at Kuerner's. This time they're on the tablecloth.