How I Spent Part 1 of My Summer Vacation, Part Three

A couple of quick notes.

First, there is stuff on Twitter that is not here. If you don’t follow @jimmenick, then look to the right to keep track of posts. The stuff that’s not here is stuff that is self-explanatory, and doesn’t need me yakking all over it.

Second, yes, the iPad can take photographs. But no, you don’t want to use it as your vacation camera. It’s not so much that you’ll look like an idiot, although you will, but it means that you’ll be lugging your iPad with you everywhere, which makes you even more of an idiot. I believe that a few years ago there was an iteration of anvils that had built-in cameras, but you never saw blacksmiths on vacations taking pictures with them, did you? Jeesh.

And yes, I did tinker with the design a bit. And finally got around to inserting SEO functionality. Took me long enough…

Anyhow, back to the vacation. From DC we drove up to Kennett Square, Pa, which is either DuPont or Wyeth country, depending on your point of view.

It was Howard Pyle who started the Brandywine School. He was a classic book illustrator (that’s his illustration on the right) and he opened a school to teach others, including N.C. Wyeth. The Brandywine River Museum was our first stop, and Pyle is prominently featured. Then again, so are the Wyeths, who are, as you quickly find out, reckoned by the dozens. The chief ones are N.C., the illustrator whose non-illustration work was a revelation, his son Andrew (Christina’s World and the Helgas being the most famous), and Andrew’s son Jamie (who is still alive and active). You get the impression there’s an art gene or something, because these are the cream of the cop, but there's always another lurking around every corner. The rap against all of them, especially Andrew given his time, was their refusal to go abstract. I wonder. We were walking along one night at dusk, down a path dimly lighted by lanterns, surrounded by tall meadow on both side, and although I tried to photograph it, we realized that only an artist’s hand could really capture the scene, not literally but conceptually, albeit still representationally. In other words, there is still a need for artists to create representational art of some sort, where nothing else will do. Granted, some hyper-realistic oil styles were rendered obsolete by the creation of photography, but they are not the only styles available to artists. Can any photographic portrait grab a viewer by the eyeballs as much as a John Singer Sargent? Dream on.

Anyhow, this was a pretty great museum. I’m a great fan of illustration, especially from the Golden Age (when magazines like Sat Eve Post were the coin of the realm), and there was plenty, plus as I say lots of non-ill work. Great illustration work is still being done nowadays, by the way, although more often than not with computer tools. The DJ art director used to be a member of the Society of Illustrators in NYC, and we used to go to the annual show, and some of this stuff would blow me away. The narrative goal of illustration, in aid of the written word, is very specific, and when it works, it really works. A lot of illustrators separate their illustration work from their gallery work, though, as if the former is cheap and the latter is high-toned. N.C.W. was certainly indicative of that three generations ago. (He was a student of Pyle's, by the way, which is how all of this connects.)

There were more Brandywiners at nearby Wilmington’s Delaware Art Museum, plus the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite works on the continent, so as far as art was concerned, the area was a strong recommend, if you like that sort of thing. And since I do like that sort of thing, I was more than satisfied.

The other big attraction is DuPontiana, which I’ll get to tomorrow.
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