One of my visual mentors has died. Andrew Wyeth passed away last week.
I mention this because early in my newspaper career as a photojournalist, I enjoyed and emulated the view two people had on the world. One of them was Wyeth. The other is John Malman, a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times.
Both saw the world through a 28mm lens. This became my primary view of the world, and how I often documented history for the various newspapers for which I worked.
It's interesting to read obituaries in both the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal and see how Wyeth was treated by the mainstream media. And I was astounded to find out that many critics thought his art was too mainstream, too simple, not good enough, in comparison to the surrealists that were popular during the time (Warhol, Dali, Pollock, etc.)
His realistic watercolors were criticized by some people because he was simply painting a photograph. One critic said his work was, "photographically meticulous."
That's the beauty of his work. They were gorgeous, raw, documentary images of life in New England. He always showed us something most of us would walk past and miss, and never see. The images he showed us would never even get on our personal radar. As a photographer, the nicest thing someone can say about your image is, "I never saw that!" And every time I looked his images, I thought the same thing. I saw the world just a little bit differently.
But that's the beauty of any type of art. That's why I like Robert Werling's scenic black-and-white images, Salvador Dali's surrealistic images (and his realistic period too) and Andrew Wyeth's wide angle paintings. They're all beautiful. They are all wonderful views of the world and you really have to enjoy how they see things.
I'm grateful I had the chance to see his work, to appreciate it and learn from it. As a photographic portrait artist, my goal is to do the same. So, what's my favorite painting? 'Christinas World.' Drop me a note to tell me which of his work is your favorite.
