New York, Andrew Crispo Gallery, Edward Hicks: A Gentle Spirit , May 16-July 28, 1975, no. 13. Raleigh, North Carolina, The North Carolina Museum of Art, An American Perspective , December 14, 1985-January 26, 1986. Charleston, West Virginia, Sunrise Museum, American Masterworks: Oils from the Maier Museum of Art, Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Drawings and Watercolors from the Collection of Amherst College , May 31-August 15, 1986. Richmond, Virginia, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and elsewhere, American Art: American Vision, Paintings from a Century of Collecting , January 25-March 4, 1990. Williamsburg, Virginia, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, and elsewhere, The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks , February 5-January 4, 1990.
Provenance
Mrs. Lilian Boschen. Phyllis Crawford, acquired from the above. Bequest to the present owner from the above, 1980.
Notes
PROPERTY OF RANDOLPH COLLEGE (FOUNDED AS RANDOLPH-MACON WOMAN'S COLLEGE), LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA
The Quaker artist and minister Edward Hicks' illustrious series of painted images known as the Peaceable Kingdoms is a well known staple of American folk art imagery. The vibrant, often luminous tableau of landscapes populated with animal and figurative groupings are predicated on Hicks' selection of the biblical text known as the Isaiah prophecy, and are a metaphor for his belief that individual human will need be released as a means of achieving a collective communal peace within the Quaker community and indeed, the world at large.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and the little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah (11:6-9)
The Peaceable Kingdom paintings evolved as Hicks' visual metaphor for this source scripture, imagery that over time took on a life of its own. This series of painted images that began as a germinal flexing of the artist's technique and innate talent, found unique voice in their visual expression of his personal devotion to these tenets of Quaker quietism. As Hicks continued to compose and render his kingdom paintings, they began to mirror the escalating turbulence within the Quaker community. This turbulence was to culminate in the historic split within the Society of Friends--a split based largely on the differences between the ideologies of the English Quaker Church and their American counterpart, as it evolved in the newly independent states and colonies.
This particular Peaceable Kingdom represents Hicks' kingdom imagery at the height of this discord within the Quaker community, and as such is possessed of formidable force and vitality. Even a cursory glance makes the viewer an active participant in the scene, if not the sole intruder. The groupings of animals and figures that in previous kingdom paintings were portrayed as calm and at casual peace with one another have all at once come to an unprecedented attention. In this kingdom, the tension that has built to a critical pitch is released in a collective, seemingly single focused gaze of every player in the scene. The "peace" of this kingdom has been replaced with a palpable tension, an almost voltaic charge that expresses itself in the fully splayed foliage and limbs of even the most distant tree. The lion bears his teeth, the central bear cub considers the now worried children with a sense of appetite and a number of the usually focused signers of William Penn's famous treaty break concentration and, from their distant vignette, join the animal grouping in considering the possible source of the disturbance.
Despite the nervous energy that pervades this scene, there is a far more intimate and personal assertion of the artist's sensibility to be seen here. The evolution of the kingdom pictures is characterized by enumerable variations in the placement of animals and figures. In previous work, Hicks' changes and rearrangements of his composition were evidence of an artist unschooled in the principals of academic fine art visual concerns teaching himself how to paint--learning how to assemble disparate elements in successful and potent combinations. His early training as a sign painter would serve him well here, bringing with it an inherent understanding of bold imagery, and the sense of simplicity needed to distill complex metaphorical messages into simple forms. As with all artists, Hicks strove to assemble his compositions to suit his own idea, and to instill each visual representation of his Kingdom imagery with his powerful interpretation of the Isaiah metaphor. Here, this one aspect of his work: a profound and inexhaustible devotion to the power of this biblical poetry and prophecy, coupled with a naove yet bold use of visual elements, represents his highly creative drive to renew each image with the rich language and the urgency of its message.
This particular painting from the Peaceable Kingdom genre shows, from a technical perspective, the artist at the top of his game. Now comfortable with his composition, and the visual vocabulary and depiction of the individual figures and animals, Hicks clearly feels free to further examine his subject, and to similarly express himself, by giving more attention to the technical aspects of his painting. The underpainting and background fields are rendered in bold, binder-rich paint layers that display a competence and largesse that contributes to the paintings feeling of boldness and force. This is in direct contrast to the labored, somewhat tentative and thinly applied paint layers that characterize the early kingdom paintings, and that of the practiced economy of the later Kingdom works.
The lyrical, almost calligraphic brushstrokes that betray his early training in decorative painting, lettering and sign work now seamlessly form the mainstay of his technique, as does an overall flatness to the picture plane as it tilts forward to seemingly deliver and emphasize the almost aggressive energy of the scene. The boldest contours and finest details of hair and fur are depicted with a relaxed, though vigorous, confidence. The shadows that define each figure are defined with a simple, fluid, often unbroken brush stroke that follows the form and contour of each solid form. This is a common technique, used by sign painters to lend mass and weight to lettering. Known as "drop-shadowing" this visual device stands as another example of how ingeniously Hicks employs his tools as a sign painter to their best advantage.
Chromatically, the palette of this Kingdom image is one of the most vibrant and varied. The markings of the leopard, rendered in early works as individual dabs of dark color have here evolved into complex, dimensional arrangements of spots through the juxtaposition of complimentary tones. In the middle-kingdom works, these patterns of spots seemingly spring to life, and in this case, each individual spot appears to glow with a fiery-hot orange center that echoes the wide eyes of the attentive beasts. The distant yellow foliage, the varied and luminous grasses and the dark depth of the foreground trees are all deftly executed in successive applications of glazes that give their respective colors incomparable depth and act like a tinted lens, returning light from below with a jewel-like luminosity.
Common to all of Hicks' metaphorical work is the purposeful association of individual figures and characters with human attributes and temperaments, coupled with a thoughtful and loving reinvention and restatement of his own feelings and ideals. The paintings of the Peaceable Kingdom genre are at the core of this personal ideology and, when viewed as a series, give a vibrant visual didactic to the complex struggle not only within the Quaker Society of Friends, but within the artist as a devout minister and man of profound faith. This Peaceable Kingdom, arguably occupying a place at the pinnacle of the genre's genius and beauty, communicates to this day an undeniable message of harmony's delicate and tenuous balance.
Scott Webster Nolley Chief Conservator Fine Art Conservation of Virginia
Information in this entry was taken from Carolyn J. Weekley, The Kingdoms of Edward Hicks (Williamsburg, VA: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999).
