Andrew Wyeth

Snow Hill, 1989, Tempera on panel, 83.82 x 116.84 cm, Andrew and Betsy Wyeth Collection; © Andrew Wyeth / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo: Peter Philbin

A Remembered Present

Commentary by Gabriel Torretta, O.P.

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Read by Ben Quash

‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you’, says the Lord to Jeremiah, ‘and before you were born I consecrated you’ (Jeremiah 1:5). The Lord reveals that he has always been at the heart of things, always suffusing the scattered moments of Jeremiah’s life with a generative knowledge and a transformative love. But Jeremiah can’t yet see the Lord face to face; he sees him only through the prism of memory.

Six figures holding brightly coloured ribbons dance around a maypole incongruously jutting out of a snowy hilltop, overlooking train tracks, a fence, and some scattered rural buildings. A seventh ribbon floats untended. Atop the pole stands an evergreen tree, somehow both apart from and a part of what happens below.

Snow Hill, one of Andrew Wyeth’s most unexpected and gripping works, comes to life as memory: each of the six figures represents a person who had been important to Wyeth, many long dead, each represented as they appeared in earlier paintings by the artist. Similarly, the structures in the landscape at the foot of the hill recreate spaces from Wyeth’s past—once-significant and now lost.

The seventh, open spot around the maypole seems to invite the viewer to find a suitable addition to the dance: Wyeth himself? His wife? Another ordinary figure from Wyeth’s seventy-year-long life captured in the amber of his previous paintings? Someone new, as yet unknown? The viewer, perhaps?

The unexpected evergreen perched implausibly on the maypole prevents the work from being a mere performance of retrospection or nostalgia. There is something perpetually present-tense about its presence, as if it has always been there, and has always been green. Almost imperceptibly, it unites the manifold pasts of the painting into a single time-defying now.

Speaking both to the great and to the humble, Jeremiah sees visions of desolation. He is disbelieved, imprisoned, abandoned. He is alone. God seems to hide. The circle of memory stays broken, and an untended ribbon escapes his grasp. But Jeremiah’s life is not a mere conglomeration of raw facts; it is a perpetual dance that takes its shape from the Unchanging One whose presence makes it real. He knows ruin is coming—and redemption.

 

References

Junker, Patricia. 2017. ‘Reflection, 1989–2009’, in Andrew Wyeth: In Retrospect, ed. by Patricia Junker and Audrey Lewis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017): 182–87

Meryman, Richard.1996. Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life (New York: HarperCollins), 415–16

See full exhibition for Jeremiah 1

Jeremiah 1

Revised Standard Version

1 The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiʹah, of the priests who were in Anʹathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiʹah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3It came also in the days of Jehoiʹakim the son of Josiʹah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiʹah, the son of Josiʹah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,

5“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

6Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” 7but the Lord said to me,

“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’;

for to all to whom I send you you shall go,

and whatever I command you you shall speak.

8Be not afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.”

9Then the Lord put forth his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,

“Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.

10See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms,

to pluck up and to break down,

to destroy and to overthrow,

to build and to plant.”

11 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a rod of almond.” 12Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”

13 The word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north.” 14Then the Lord said to me, “Out of the north evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15For lo, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord; and they shall come and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls round about, and against all the cities of Judah. 16And I will utter my judgments against them, for all their wickedness in forsaking me; they have burned incense to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands. 17But you, gird up your loins; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. 18And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. 19They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.”

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