Watercolor Study for Wind from the Sea
Sketch
Wind From the Sea Finished Painting
“Many years after he completed Wind from the Sea, Wyeth described his creative process when he spoke before a large audience of cadets at West Point. During a question-an-answer exchange, he characterized his initial sketches as ‘red hot impressions put down as quickly as I possibly can before the effect is gone. ‘ He went on to explain that the finished painting that would result from these studies often took months to complete. During that period Wyeth worked alone in his studio, where, as he told the cadets, he let the subject of the painting go ‘through my imagination until it became a symbol to me.’
“On more than one occasion, Wyetht described Wind from the Sea as a portrait of Christina, noting that the birds crocheted on the fraying curtains ‘were as delicate as the real Christina.’ It is possible that the symbolic resonance of the open window and billowing curtains was immediately apparent to Wyeth when he made his first rapid sketches on that initial afternoon in 1947. More likely, perhaps, is the scenario he outlined for the cadets, one in which the symbolic layers inthe composition emerged as he painted alone in his Olson House studio and the image worked thoughhis imagination ‘until it became a symbol.’
“During the course of his career, Wyeth repeatedly declared that he wished to create images capable of conveying to others the heightened emotion he experienced through chance events–a sudden gust of wind lifting a curtain, for example. Because preliminary studies survive for many of Wyeth’s major works, including those for Wind from the Sea, it is possible to witness his exploration of a subject in depth before distillation began. Wyeth’s internal reconfiguratin of external experience became an exercise in subtraction and simplification.” Exhibition Catalogue, pgs. 20-22.
Your National Gallery of Art 